Third-person singular simple present indicative form of cleave. (verb)
Examples of word cleaves
Their skin cleaves to their bones, their flesh being quite consumed and wasted away; it is withered; it has become like a stick, as dry and hard as a piece of wood.
And yet the idea cleaves to me strangely, and is liable to stick to my shroud.
They clasp hands upon the compact, and Hagen with his sword cleaves in two the drinking-horn.
The mystic fire consumes our weakness, the sacred sword cleaves the bondage of desire.
Similarly Pakudha Kaccâyana states that "when a sharp sword cleaves a head in twain" the soul and pain play a part similar to that played by the component elements of the sword and head.
As the sword cleaves through the byrny, so there the mountain flank
Now from Westport to Ballinrobe we had met nobody but a very few people going into town either riding on an ass or driving one laden with a pair of panniers or "cleaves" of turf, for which some fourpence or fivepence would be paid.
The hero habitually "cleaves" his foeman "to the midriff," the "midriff" being what the properly brought up hero always has in view.