Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. Archaic A past tense of cleave1.
- v. Archaic A past tense of cleave2.
- n. A cylindrical hardwood stick used in a pair as a percussion instrument.
- n. A syncopated two-bar musical pattern.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Obsolete preterit of cleave or cleave.
- n. A kind of stool used by ship-carpenters.
- n. A graft; a scion.
Wiktionary
- n. music One half of a set of claves, a percussion instrument consisting of two sticks, one of which is used to strike the other.
- n. music A characteristic pattern of beats, especially the 3-2 son clave.
- v. archaic, obsolete Simple past tense and past participle of cleave.
GNU Webster's 1913
- obsolete imp. of cleave.
Etymologies
- From Spanish clave, from Latin clāvis ("key"). (Wiktionary)
- American Spanish, from Spanish, keystone, from Latin clāvis, key. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“She said no more at that time; but her word clave to”
“His sword clave the stoutest armor asunder at a blow.”
“And for that word, when he came to the crown indeed, and ruled wide lands, was he called Child Christopher; and that name clave to him after he was dead, and but a name in the tale of his kindred.”
“And when Sir Mordred felt he had his death wound, he raised himself up and struck King Arthur such a blow that the sword clave his helmet, and then fell stark dead on the earth again.”
“Dancers sweating, moving their feet and swinging their hips around the floor to the "clave" rhythm of the percussion beats, beautiful young couples, contented middle-aged couples, single women dancing with one another or alone, single men on the sidelines watching the women and enjoying the pyrotechnical skills of the band.”
Pamela Mays McDonald: Campaign Journal: Young San Francisco Does Its Part for Obama While Dancing
“Ruth and Naomi (the word "clave" is used to describe their relationship, which is exactly the same word used in describing husband-wife relationships); David and Jonathan; and Daniel and Ashpenaz (the Hebrew describing their relationship is chesed v'rachimin-chesed translates as "mercy" but v'rachimin, which is used in a plural form suggesting more than one of its usual meanings, which includes "physical love").”
“Eurosistema … sin alejarse de la participación equivalente a la "clave" del Banco de España en el capital del BCE ".”
“Persona, cosa o hecho clave y fundamental dentro de un ámbito o contexto.”
“Mr. Sánchez and the Cuban players struggled to find common ground, particularly in melding rock's backbeat with clave, an accented Latin beat.”
“Her recording of the "Rolling Stone" has generous production values, i.e., a full band, but I much prefer the slower live version, with just Tracey Stark on piano and the understated hint of a clave pattern.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘clave’.
-
Olde Englisc
English words of Anglo-Saxon origin.
onslaught, slain, clove, clave, thrice, nincompoop, scorn, storm, scant, lurk, beneath, atop and 143 more...
-
EN - archaic words
abide, abjure, abroad, adamant, afield, aforetime, aghast, anon, apace, argent, assuage, aught and 328 more...
-
hedges's Words
wii, crepuscule, adumbrate, concatenation, sufi, qawwali, furry, riot, mellifluous, conspiracy, etymology, tea cozy and 369 more...
-
beatricks's Words
tremendous, naiad, thrush, samsara, thronging, nascent, broom, aristeia, streak, susurrant, reverberate, resistentialism and 352 more...
-
Phrases and words I didn't know
give up the ghost, ninja'd, coal-hole, hotting up, chancer, clave, salaryman, turf accountant, cremains, autoclave, hummingbird mind, gank and 175 more...
-
Music
sackbut, quaternion, carillon, luthier, pizzicato, purfling, jig, ditty, tritone, blue note, ostinato, mellifluent and 13 more...
-
The Diamond Age
Words from the novel by Neal Stephenson.
primer, nanosite, fabricule, aether, artifex, diamondoid, transpicuous, source, tetrahedral, lithocule, nanophone, espadrille and 68 more...
-
Percussion
Percussion instruments, excluding stringed ones such as piano, with drums, gongs, and bells tagged. Only mononyms are listed, so hi-hat and tom-tom are out. A gamelan is an assemblage of percussion...
drum, gong, bell, chime, cymbal, triangle, castanet, xylophone, glockenspiel, maraca, marimba, tambourine and 78 more...
-
I like: C
cabal, cadmium, caligula, calliope, callow, camel, camera obscura, canticle, carmina burana, carpe diem, cartouche, casablanca and 68 more...
-
Anglo-Saxon
...or otherwise early Germanic.
storm, scorn, nincompoop, thrice, clave, clove, slain, onslaught, hew, breadth, hussy, pelt and 57 more...
-
My firsts
tulsi, citronella, crimp, plowshare, crudité, tattooine, okonomiyaki, soba, sixaxis, carport, woodshed, wiimote and 68 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for clave.
Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.