cleofan

Forms

clēofan (strong class 2; third-person singular present clīefþ, past singular clēaf, past plural clufon)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *kleuban, from Proto-Germanic *kleubaną (“to split, to cleave”).^[1][2][3] The strong verb of the second class has cognates in Old Norse kljúfa (“to cleave, to split”), Old Saxon kliovan (“to split”) and Old High German klioban (“to split, to divide”).^[2][4][5][6]

Orel relates it to Ancient Greek γλύφω (glúphō, “to hollow out”) and equates it with Latin glūbō (“to peel, to strip the bark from”).^[2] Köbler derives it from the root Proto-Indo-European *gleubʰ- (“to cut, to carve, to peel”) (Pokorny p. 401).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The corpus gives no manuscript date for the verb.^[8] Bosworth and Toller's first poetic witness is the poem on the battle of Brunanburh, entered in the Chronicle under the year 937: “Bordweall clufon”, “they split the shield-wall”.^[9] In The Battle of Maldon the warriors likewise “clufon cellod bord”, split the bossed shield.^[8][9]

Semantic evolution

In Old English the verb is rare: the DOE Corpus has a single token outside the shared forms, in Maldon.^[8] It glosses Latin secare and scindere in the Prudentius glosses, and the Supplement adds splitting timber in winter, a cloven hill in a charter bound and the compound āclēofan.^[10] A Durham Ritual gloss renders “scindite corda vestra”, “rend your hearts”, with the imperative cleafað.^[10]

The verb survived as Middle English cleven “to split, cut apart”, with an Old English third person clīefþ behind the vowel of Middle English clīven; it is now English cleave “to split”.^[11][12]

Timeline

• 937 (annal) – Bordweall clufon “they split the shield-wall” in the Chronicle poem on Brunanburh.^[9]
• undated – clufon cellod bord in The Battle of Maldon.^[9][8]
• c. 1300 – Middle English cleuen shides “to split logs” in Havelok.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. to cleave, split, cut apart.^[9][7]
2. to separate, divide.^[9][7]

Word family

• āclēofan
• tōclēofan

Descendants

• Middle English cleven (→ English cleave; Scots cleave)^[1]

Related words

• clufu

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 216
3. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
4. ^ Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. kljúfa
5. ^ Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de
6. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altsächsisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. cléofan
8. ^ a b c d Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
9. ^ a b c d e f Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 158
10. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 128
11. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
12. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com