Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Not cleft.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

un- +‎ cleft

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word uncleft.

Examples

  • And both mouths, while generously proportioned, carried the impression of girlish sweetness and chastity along with the muscles that could draw the lips to the firmness and harshness that would not give the lie to the square, uncleft chins beneath.

    CHAPTER IX 2010

  • The jaws were strong without massiveness, the nose, large-nostriled, was straight enough and prominent enough without being too straight or prominent, the chin square without harshness and uncleft, and the mouth girlish and sweet to a degree that did not hide the firmness to which the lips could set on due provocation.

    CHAPTER IV 2010

  • And both mouths, while generously proportioned, carried the impression of girlish sweetness and chastity along with the muscles that could draw the lips to the firmness and harshness that would not give the lie to the square, uncleft chins beneath.

    The Little Lady of the Big House, by Jack London 1916

  • The jaws were strong without massiveness, the nose, large-nostriled, was straight enough and prominent enough without being too straight or prominent, the chin square without harshness and uncleft, and the mouth girlish and sweet to a degree that did not hide the firmness to which the lips could set on due provocation.

    The Little Lady of the Big House, by Jack London 1916

  • For if, when the sun is shining upon a tree, the axe should cleave the tree, and, nevertheless, the sun remains uncleft and void of passion, much more will the passionless divinity of the Word, united in subsistence to the flesh, remain void of passion when the body undergoes passion [2233].

    NPNF2-09. Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus 1898

  • The jaws were strong without massiveness, the nose, large-nostriled, was straight enough and prominent enough without being too straight or prominent, the chin square without harshness and uncleft, and the mouth girlish and sweet to a degree that did not hide the firmness to which the lips could set on due provocation.

    The Little Lady of the Big House Jack London 1896

  • And both mouths, while generously proportioned, carried the impression of girlish sweetness and chastity along with the muscles that could draw the lips to the firmness and harshness that would not give the lie to the square, uncleft chins beneath.

    The Little Lady of the Big House Jack London 1896

  • The log which was to form the back-brand of the evening fire was the uncleft trunk of a tree, so unwieldy that it could be neither brought nor rolled to its place; and accordingly two men were to be observed dragging and heaving it in by chains and levers as the hour of assembly drew near.

    Far from the Madding Crowd 1874

  • The log which was to form the back-brand of the evening fire was the uncleft trunk of a tree, so unwieldy that it could be neither brought nor rolled to its place; and accordingly two men were to be observed dragging and heaving it in by chains and levers as the hour of assembly drew near.

    Far from the Madding Crowd 1874

  • Berkshire variety of the British domesticated pig, in which the hoof is entire and uncleft.

    The Book of Household Management Isabella Mary 1861

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • “The firststuffs have their being as motes called unclefts. These are mighty small: one seedweight of waterstuff holds a tale of them like unto two followed by twenty-two noughts. Most unclefts link together to make what are called bulkbits. Thus, the waterstuff bulkbit bestands of two waterstuff unclefts, the sourstuff bulkbit of two sourstuff unclefts, and so on. (Some kinds, such as sunstuff, keep alone; others, such as iron, cling together in chills when in the fast standing; and there are yet more yokeways.) When unlike unclefts link in a bulkbit, they make bindings. Thus, water is a binding of two waterstuff unclefts with one sourstuff uncleft, while a bulkbit of one of the forestuffs making up flesh may have a thousand or more unclefts of these two firststuffs together with coalstuff and chokestuff.�?

    — Poul Anderson, Uncleftish Beholding, in Analog Science Fact / Science Fiction Magazine, 1989

    November 14, 2008

  • You'd think, if a writer were going to devote himself to turgid prattle of extended length, he might be able to pass beyond -stuff.

    This reads like an account of that unfortunate incident of a reanimated nearderthal channelling Lewis Carroll at Head-Smashed-In-Pish-Tosh-Jump.

    November 14, 2008

  • I think you may be missing the point, o leather-eared one. The whole thing is a riff, imagining what English might look like if the Romans and Normans had never made it to Britain. That's the rationale for using only words of germanic origin.

    The full text is here:

    Uncleftish Beholding text

    It's actually very cleverly done.

    November 14, 2008

  • For instance, this:

    Having the same number of bernstonebits, the samesteads of a firststuff behave almost alike minglingly. They do show some unlikenesses, outstandingly among the heavier ones, and these can be worked to sunder samesteads from each other. Most samesteads of every firststuff are unabiding. Their kernels break up, each at its own speed. This speed is written as the *half-life*, which is how long it takes half of any deal of the samestead thus to shift itself. The doing is known as *lightrotting*. It may happen fast or slowly, and in any of sundry ways, offhanging on the makeup of the kernel.

    would correspond to something like this:

    Having the same number of electrons, the isotopes of an element have similar chemical properties. There are some differences, particularly among the heavier ones, and this can be used to separate isotopes. Most isotopes are not permanent. Their nuclei break up, each at a characteristic speed etc.

    (The next sentence seems sloppy as a halflife is not a speed or rate...)

    November 14, 2008

  • Please, I've just had breakfast.

    Besides, I think that when a writer gets out of bed in the morning and says to himself 'I'm going to show them how clever I am today, just you watch!', he's on dangerous ground. I can vaguely see the point of this but, boy, the gag labours. I remember reading a while back a version of our constitution rewritten as 'plain-Australian', predictably full of blokes and beauts and sheilas and all that. After the first paragraph I felt like crawling into a bomb-shelter and staying there the rest of my life. I suppose there are people out there who will buy a Bible translated into Lolcat but it aint me, babe.

    November 14, 2008

  • A little GRUMPY this morning, are we?

    November 14, 2008

  • Reminds me a little bit of this: xkcd – but less so once I read the rationale for it.

    November 14, 2008

  • Yeah, this style—I suppose little more than a complicated wordgame–is commonly called Ander-Saxon after Poul Anderson, or just Anglish, hence the name of my list. Anderson's article, incidentally, is not perfect: he uses ordinary, a Latinate word, and there are frequent occurrences of around and round, of Old French origin (despite appearing in almost every Germanic language). Most egregiously, however, stuff also comes to us via Old French. However, the element names ending in -stuff are not the result of a lack of imagination, as bilby assumes, but are a direct analogue of (and in some cases, calque) the original German names for elements, such as Wasserstoff for hydrogen, and which are still widely used.

    November 20, 2008

  • Not hard to put it right for Anderson's oversights.

    ordinary - everyday ... The least uncleft is that of EVERYDAY

    waterstuff.

    around - ringing ... prefix um (OE ym(b)) ...

    There is a heavy kernel with a forward bernstonish lading, and RINGING it one or more light motes with backward ladings.

    Early worldken folk thought bernstonebits UMswing/RINGS/LOOPS/ the kernel like the earth RINGS/LOOPS the sun

    roundaround board (orbit) - ring/loop/wheel path (OE hweollast)/whirlt (OE hwyrlt)

    This is readily seen when all are set forth in what is called the roundaround board of the firststuffs.

    August 23, 2011

  • I passtrot under the hideousweight of wankstuff.

    August 23, 2011