different between cleft vs orifice

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kl?ft/
• Rhymes: -?ft

Etymology 1

From Middle English clift, from Old English ?eclyft, from Proto-Germanic *(ga)kluftiz. Compare Dutch klucht (“chaotic”), Swedish klyft (“cave, den”) cave, den, German Kluft. See cleave.

Noun

cleft (plural clefts)

1. An opening, fissure, or V-shaped indentation made by or as if by splitting.
   • 1855, Robert Browning, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”, XXVI:

     Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him / Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim / Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.

2. A piece made by splitting.

   a cleft of wood

3. A disease of horses; a crack on the band of the pastern.

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

See also

• dimple

Verb

cleft (third-person singular simple present clefts, present participle clefting, simple past and past participle clefted)

1. (linguistics) 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."

Related terms

• clefting
• cleft sentence

Etymology 2

Verb

cleft

1. simple past tense and past participle of cleave

Adjective

cleft (not comparable)

1. split, divided, or partially divided into two.

   Synonym: cloven

Translations

English

Etymology

From Middle French, from Old French, from Late Latin orificium (“an opening, literally the making of a mouth”), compound of os (“mouth”) + facio (“to make”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /????f?s/
• (US) IPA^(key): /????f?s/

Noun

orifice (plural orifices)

1. A mouth or aperture, such as of a tube, pipe, etc.; an opening.

Translations

French

Etymology

From Late Latin orificium.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?.?i.fis/
• Rhymes: -is

Noun

orifice m (plural orifices)

1. an orifice

Further reading

• “orifice” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).