kloof

Borrowed from Dutch kloof (“ravine”) (South Africa). Doublet of clove.

• (US, UK) IPA^(key): /kluf/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

kloof (plural kloofs)

1. (South Africa) A deep glen or ravine.
   • 1901, William Thomas Black, The Fish River bush, South Africa, and its wild animals:

     Forming the south boundary of the valley is a range of disrupted bushy hills, with intervening deep and rugged kloofs and ravines, which constituted the retreat of Jan Pockbaas and his rebel banditti.

   • 1948, Alan Paton, chapter 1, in Cry, the Beloved Country, New York: Scribner, published 1987:

     The grass is rich and matted, you cannot see the soil. It holds the rain and the mist, and they seep into the ground, feeding the streams in every kloof.

   • 1978, André Brink, Rumours of Rain, Vintage, published 2000, page 172:

     Occasionally the narrow dirt road rose above the mist on the slopes of the high round hills, from where one looked down on the silver clouds in the valleys and kloofs below, a magical, incredible sight.

• kloofing

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “kloof”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• Flook, flook

• IPA^(key): /kluəf/

From Dutch kloof, from Middle Dutch clove.

kloof (plural klowe)

1. gap, split
2. ravine, gorge, glen

From Dutch kloven.

kloof (present kloof, present participle klowende, past participle gekloof)

1. to split, to cleave

• IPA^(key): /kloːf/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -oːf

From Middle Dutch clove, from Proto-West Germanic *klubō, from Proto-Germanic *klubô, related to *kleubaną (“to split, cleave”). Cognate with German Klobe, Kloben, Cimbrian khlóop.

kloof f (plural kloven, diminutive kloofje n)

1. gap, gorge, ravine

• kloofdal
• taalkloof

• klieven

• Afrikaans: kloof
• → English: kloof
• → Papiamentu: kloof (dated)

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

kloof

1. inflection of kloven:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
   3. imperative

kloof

1. singular past indicative of klieven

kloof

1. singular past indicative of kluiven