All 7 Uses of
cleave
in
Moby Dick
- He sees no black sky and raging sea, feels not the reeling timbers, and little hears he or heeds he the far rush of the mighty whale, which even now with open mouth is cleaving the seas after him.†
Chpt 7-9 (definition 1)
- For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air.†
Chpt 28-30 (definition 1)
- From the vibrating line extending the entire length of the upper part of the boat, and from its now being more tight than a harpstring, you would have thought the craft had two keels—one cleaving the water, the other the air—as the boat churned on through both opposing elements at once.†
Chpt 61-63 (definition 1)
- Unlike the straight perpendicular twin-jets of the Right Whale, which, dividing at top, fall over in two branches, like the cleft drooping boughs of a willow, the single forward-slanting spout of the Sperm Whale presents a thick curled bush of white mist, continually rising and falling away to leeward.†
Chpt 85-87 (definition 1)
- And still this hair is growing now; this moment growing, and heat must breed it; but no, it's like that sort of common grass that will grow anywhere, between the earthy clefts of Greenland ice or in Vesuvius lava.†
Chpt 133-135 (definition 1) *
- He gave the word; and still gazing round him, was steadily lowered through the cloven blue air to the deck.†
Chpt 133-135 (definition 1)
Uses with a very rare meaning:
- From that hour I clove to Queequeg like a barnacle; yea, till poor Queequeg took his last long dive.†
Chpt 13-15 (definition 2) *
Definitions:
-
(1) (cleave as in: cleave through) to split or cut through somethingeditor's notes: Ironically, this word can mean to split in two or to hold together.
Note that you may see cleaved, cleft, clove, or cloven as the past tense of this sense of cleave.
- (2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)