different between corrugation vs cleft

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?r.?.??e?.??n/
• Rhymes: -e???n

Noun

corrugation (countable and uncountable, plural corrugations)

1. The process of corrugating; contraction into wrinkles or alternate ridges and grooves.
   • 1975, Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift [Avon ed., 1976, pp. 391–92]:

     According to the pilot, ships were taking hard punishment in the storm. But from this altitude the corrugations of the seas looked no higher to the eye than the ridges of your palate feel to the tongue.

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