clove
verb/kləʊv/
/kləʊv/
- past tense of cleaveWord Originsense 1 Middle English: from Old French clou de girofle, literally ‘nail of gillyflower’ (from its shape), gillyflower being originally the name of the spice and later applied to the similarly scented pink. sense 2 Old English clufu, of Germanic origin, corresponding to the first element of German Knoblauch (altered from Old High German klovolouh), and the base of cleave ‘to split something in two’.
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