All 3 Uses of
cleave
in
Main Street
- He refused to wear soft hats; cleaved to a hard derby, as a symbol of virility and prosperity; and sometimes he forgot to take it off in the house.
Chpt 24cleaved = stuck (held tightly)
- The church was their society and their standard; they went to Sunday service, Sunday School, Christian Endeavor, missionary lectures, church suppers, precisely as they had at home; they agreed that ambassadors and flippant newspapermen and infidel scientists of the bureaus were equally wicked and to be avoided; and by cleaving to Tincomb Church they kept their ideals from all contamination.
Chpt 37cleaving = holding firmly
- But she found a Washington which did not cleave to Main Street.
Chpt 37 *cleave = hold (to the values of)
Definition:
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(cleave as in: cleave to) to hold firmly to something -- such as an object, a person or ideaeditor's notes: Ironically, this word can mean to split in two or to hold together.
Note that you may see cleaved, clove, or clave as the past tense of this sense of cleave.