All 7 Uses of
cleave
in
Moby Dick
- 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 28-30cloven = split (or divided in two)
- 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 85-87cleft = a split or crack in something"Editor's Notes"Cleft is the past tense of cleave like left is past tense of leave.
Today, cleft is most seen in the form cleft palate or cleft lip to refer to medical conditions at birth.
- 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 133-135clefts = splits or cracks
- He gave the word; and still gazing round him, was steadily lowered through the cloven blue air to the deck.†
Chpt 133-135 *cloven = split (or divided in two)
- 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
- 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
Uses with a meaning too rare to warrant foucs:
- From that hour I clove to Queequeg like a barnacle; yea, till poor Queequeg took his last long dive.†
Chpt 13-15 *clove = a dried flower bud or section of a garlic plant
Definitions:
-
(1)
(cleave as in: cleave through) to split or cut through somethingIronically, 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)
(cleave as in: cleave to) to hold firmly to something -- such as an object, a person or ideaIronically, 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. -
(3)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
a proper noun or other word too rare to warrant focus