Library / English Dictionary

CALVE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Give birth to (a calf)

Example:

the whales calve at this time of year

Synonyms:

calve; have young

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Hypernyms (to "calve" is one way to...):

bear; birth; deliver; give birth; have (cause to be born)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Sense 2

Meaning:

Release ice

Example:

The icebergs and glaciers calve

Synonyms:

break up; calve

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "calve" is one way to...):

divide; part; separate (come apart)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Credits

 Context examples: 

The calving of the massive new iceberg was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Aqua satellite, and confirmed by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite instrument on the joint NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi-NPP) satellite.

(Massive Iceberg Breaks Off from Antarctica, NASA)

It usually occurs in males and is characterized by fatigue in the hips, thighs, or calves on exercising, absence of pulsation in the femoral arteries, impotence, and often pallor and coldness of the lower limbs.

(Leriche Syndrome, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

As twilight fell the old bull stood with lowered head, watching his mates—the cows he had known, the calves he had fathered, the bulls he had mastered—as they shambled on at a rapid pace through the fading light.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

The researchers found cavities that undercut the base of these leading edges that can destabilize the ice front and enhance iceberg calving, the process where parts of the glacier break off and float away.

(The Hidden Meltdown of Greenland, NASA)

A negotiation was opened through the medium of the ambassador, Sam; and after much pacing to and fro, till, I think, the said Sam's calves must have ached with the exercise, permission was at last, with great difficulty, extorted from the rigorous Sibyl, for the three to wait upon her in a body.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

For many years, Yakutat’s two main tributaries merged and formed a 5-kilometer (3-mile) calving face that extended far into Harlequin Lake.

(Retreat of Yakutat Glacier, NASA)

Afar off he heard the squawking of caribou calves.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

There is a patience of the wild—dogged, tireless, persistent as life itself—that holds motionless for endless hours the spider in its web, the snake in its coils, the panther in its ambuscade; this patience belongs peculiarly to life when it hunts its living food; and it belonged to Buck as he clung to the flank of the herd, retarding its march, irritating the young bulls, worrying the cows with their half-grown calves, and driving the wounded bull mad with helpless rage.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

The famous Master of the Ring was clad in honour of the occasion in a most resplendent scarlet coat worked in gold at the buttonholes, a white stock, a looped hat with a broad black band, buff knee-breeches, white silk stockings, and paste buckles—a costume which did justice to his magnificent figure, and especially to those famous balustrade calves which had helped him to be the finest runner and jumper as well as the most formidable pugilist in England.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)