The word cleave has appeared in 21 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Feb. 17 in “The Paradox of the Lizard Tail, Solved” by Jack Tamisiea:
At a microscopic scale, they could see that each fracture where the tail had detached from the body was brimming with mushroom-shaped pillars. Zooming in even more, they saw that each mushroom cap was dotted with tiny pores. The team was surprised to find that instead of parts of the tail interlocking along the fracture planes, the dense pockets of micropillars on each segment appeared to touch only lightly. This made the lizard tail seem like a brittle constellation of loosely connected segments.
… While these microstructures can withstand pulling, the team found that they were susceptible to splintering from a slight twist. They determined that the tails were 17 times more likely to fracture from bending than from being pulled. In the slow-motion videos the researchers took, the lizards twisted their tails to cleanly cleave them in two along the fleshy fracture plane.
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word cleave in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
Then, read some of the other sentences students have submitted and use the “Recommend” button to vote for two original sentences that stand out to you.
If you want a better idea of how cleave can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com.
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Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.
