Emily Dickinson Lexicon

CLEAVE, v.t. [pret. cleft; pp. cleft or cleaved. The old pret. clove is obsolete; clave is obsolescent. The old participle, cloven, is obsolescent, or rather used as an adjective. Sax. cleofian, or clifian; D. klooven; G. klieben; Sw. klyfwa; Dan. klöver; Russ. lopayu; Gr. λεπω. This word seems to be connected with the L. liber, free, and bark, book, libero, to free, Fr. livrer, whence deliver.]

1. To part or divide by force; to split or rive; to open or sever the cohering parts of a body, by cutting or by the application of force; as, to cleave wood; to cleave a rock; to cleave the flood. – Ps. lxxiv. Milton. Dryden.
2. To part or open naturally. Every beast that cleaved the cleft into two claws. – Deut. xiv.