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# clove

noun (a clove, cloves); verb form (cleave — old past tense «clove»)

«clove» in the English dictionary: everyday — its meanings, how the lessons use it, and examples, each with its tree on Mova.

## Everyday

1. A small, dried, nail-shaped flower bud used as a strong-smelling spice, for example in cooking, mulled drinks and Christmas oranges. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clove/#m1)
2. One small section of a bulb of garlic: «a clove of garlic». [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clove/#m2)
3. (old) Past tense of «cleave» (to split): «He clove the log in two.» [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clove/#m3)

### In the lessons

In cooking and science, cloves come from a tree grown in Indonesia and Zanzibar; clove oil was used to numb toothache. In history lessons cloves were part of the spice trade. In recipes «two cloves of garlic» means two small segments, not two bulbs.

### Examples

- Add two cloves of garlic to the sauce. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clove/#x1)
- We pushed cloves into an orange to make a pomander. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clove/#x2)
- Cloves smell warm and spicy. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clove/#x3)
- Grandma rubbed clove oil on her sore tooth. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clove/#x4)
- Ships sailed far to buy cloves and nutmeg. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clove/#x5)
- One bulb of garlic has about ten cloves. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clove/#x6)
- I took them gratefully, and as we went from one island to another I laid in stores of cloves, cinnamon, and other spices. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clove/#x7)

### Note

Countable: one clove, two cloves. A clove of garlic is not the whole garlic bulb — a common recipe trap. The old verb form «clove» (from cleave) is only in old stories and the Bible.

## On Mova

- [Trees and pragmatics of «clove» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clove/): every meaning and example parsed by Mova, with its dependency tree and frames.
- [«clove» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/dictionaries/school/w/clove.html) on Mova free.