different between crevice vs cleavage

English

Etymology

From Middle English crevice, from Old French crevace, from crever (“to break, burst”), from Latin crepare (“to break, burst, crack”). Doublet of crevasse.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?k??v?s/

Noun

crevice (plural crevices)

1. A narrow crack or fissure, as in a rock or wall.
   • ?, Alfred Tennyson, Mariana

     The mouse, / Behind the mouldering wainscot, shrieked, / Or from the crevice peer'd about.

   • 16 March, 1926, Virginia Woolf, letter to V. Sackville-West

     I can't tell you how urbane and sprightly the old poll parrot was; and […] not a pocket, not a crevice, of pomp, humbug, respectability in him: he was fresh as a daisy.

Translations

Verb

crevice (third-person singular simple present crevices, present participle crevicing, simple past and past participle creviced)

1. To crack; to flaw.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Sir H. Wotton to this entry?)

References

• crevice in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• crevice in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• crevice at OneLook Dictionary Search

Old French

Alternative forms

• crevez, crevis, crevesce, creveche, creveis, escrevise, escreveice, escreviche

Etymology

From either Frankish *krebitja (“crayfish”), diminutive of *krebit (“crab”), from Proto-Germanic *krabitaz (“crab, cancer”), from Proto-Indo-European *greb?-, *gereb?- (“to scratch, crawl”), or from Old High German krebiz (“edible crustacean, crab”) (German Krebs (“crab”)), from the same source. Cognate with Middle Low German kr?vet (“crab”), Dutch kreeft (“crayfish, lobster”), Old English crabba (“crab”).

Noun

crevice f (oblique plural crevices, nominative singular crevice, nominative plural crevices)

1. crayfish, crawfish

Descendants

• Middle French: escrevice, escrevisse, escrevisce, crevis, creviche, crevice
  • French: écrevisse
• ? Middle Dutch: crevetse
• ? Middle English: crevis, crevyse, creuez, crevez, crevise, creveys, crevesse, krevys
  • English: crevis; crayfish, crawfish (influenced by fish)

English

Etymology

cleave +? -age

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?kli?v?d?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?kliv?d?/
• Hyphenation: cleav?age

Noun

cleavage (countable and uncountable, plural cleavages)

1. The act of cleaving or the state of being cleft. [from 19th c.]
2. The hollow or separation between a woman's breasts, especially as revealed by a low neckline. [from 20th c.]
3. (by extension) Any similar separation between two body parts, such as the buttocks or toes.
4. (biology) The repeated division of a cell into daughter cells after mitosis. [from 19th c.]
5. (chemistry) The splitting of a large molecule into smaller ones.
6. (mineralogy) The tendency of a crystal to split along specific planes. [from 19th c.]
7. (politics) The division of voters into voting blocs.

Synonyms

• (separation between breasts): intermammary sulcus

Derived terms

• cleavage furrow
• cleavaged

Related terms

• cleave
• cleft

Translations

See also

• décolletage
• spathic