cloven
part of speech
adjective (cloven); verb form (an old past participle of cleave: cleave, cleaved/cleft/clove, cleaved/cleft/cloven)
meaning for a pupil
1) Split into two parts, especially a hoof divided into two toes («cloven hoof»), as on cows, sheep, goats, pigs and deer. tree →
2) (old, literary) Split or cut apart by a strong blow. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science lessons on animals, cows, deer and goats have cloven hooves while horses have a single solid hoof. In old stories, folk tales and paintings the Devil is often shown with cloven hooves, so «showing the cloven hoof» once meant showing a wicked side. In the Bible, the food laws in Leviticus mention animals that «part the hoof» (have cloven hooves) and chew the cud. It tells the reader something is split in two.
examples
- Deer have cloven hooves. tree →
- The pig's cloven hoof left a two-part print in the mud. tree →
- Horses do not have cloven hooves; their hooves are solid. tree →
- In the story, the stranger's boots hid cloven hooves. tree →
- Sheep and goats are cloven-hoofed animals. tree →
- The Bible's food laws speak of animals with a divided hoof that chew the cud. tree →
- The sea washes away the blood that has flowed from the cloven skulls. tree →
note
Mainly used in «cloven hoof» / «cloven-hoofed». The verb «cleave» is old and odd: its past forms are cleaved, cleft or clove, and cloven or cleft. In modern English people say «split» instead.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «cloven» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.