Etymology

cleft

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Today it means: An opening, fissure, or V-shaped indentation made by or as if by splitting. Full definition →

Middle English clifte ← Old English ġeclyft ← Proto-West Germanic *klufti
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The story

  1. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*kluftiz
  2. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*klufti
  3. Old English · inherited fromġeclyft
  4. Middle English · inherited fromclifte
  5. English todaycleft

From Middle English clifte, from Old English ġeclyft, from Proto-West Germanic *klufti, from Proto-Germanic *kluftiz, equivalent to cleave + -t (“-th”). Compare Dutch klucht (“coarse comedy”), Swedish klyft (“cave, den”), German Kluft. See cleave. The modern form with /ɛ/ is by association with Etymology 2 (the past form of cleave).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.