cleft
To syntactically separate a prominent constituent from the rest of the clause that…To syntactically separate a prominent constituent from the rest of the clause that concerns it, such as threat in "The threat which I saw but which he didn't see, was his downfall."
» He has a cleft chin and a square jaw.
У него ямочка на подбородке и квадратная челюсть. — marafon
rul · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FRMeaning
1 sensesTo syntactically separate a prominent constituent from the rest of the clause that concerns it, such as threat in "The threat which I saw but which he didn't see, was his downfall."
Examples
9 sentencesHe has a cleft chin and a square jaw.
ruУ него ямочка на подбородке и квадратная челюсть. — marafon
The cleft in the rock provided shelter for the hiker.
Tom has a cleft lip.
ruУ Тома заячья губа. — sharptoothed
deTom hat eine Lippenspalte. — al_ex_an_der
She has a cleft lip.
ruУ неё заячья губа. — odexed
deSie hat eine Hasenscharte. — wolfgangth
He has a cleft lip.
ruУ него заячья губа. — fjay69
deEr hat eine Hasenscharte. — Pfirsichbaeumchen
Origin
From Middle English clift, from Old English ġeclyft, from Proto-West Germanic *klufti, froFrom Middle English clift, from Old English ġeclyft, from Proto-West Germanic *klufti, from Proto-Germanic *kluftiz, equivalent to cleave + -t (“-th”). Compare Dutch klucht (“coarse comedy”), Swedish klyft (“cave, den”), German Kluft. See cleave.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
clefts, clefting, clefted, cleftedWord family
2 related wordsLessons for this word
3 lessons- A1Present simple — Because it is a verb
- A1Past simple, regular verbs — Because of its past form
- A2Present perfect: introduction — Because of its past participle
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.