Meaning & use
clove
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Meanings
nouncountable or uncountable
A dried flower bud of a tropical tree, used whole or ground as a strong, sweet spice.
Grammar: Countable for single buds (three cloves), uncountable for the spice (ground clove).
Patterns
- a pinch of clove
She studded the ham with cloves.
The cider was flavored with cinnamon and clove.
A single clove can make a dish taste strongly of the spice.
nouncountable
One of the small sections that make up a bulb of garlic.
Grammar: Countable and usually with of garlic: two cloves of garlic.
Patterns
- a clove of garlic
Add two cloves of garlic to the pan.
Peel each clove and chop it finely.
The recipe calls for six cloves of roasted garlic.
verbtransitivearchaic
Past tense of cleave, meaning to split or cut apart.
Grammar: Past form; also cleft or cleaved.
The axe clove the log in two.
He clove a path through the crowd.
The ship clove the waves.
Word forms
| plural | cloves |
|---|
Common combinations
- clove of garlic
- Crush a clove of garlic into the sauce.
- ground cloves
- Add a teaspoon of ground cloves to the cake.
- whole cloves
- Simmer the tea with whole cloves.
- clove oil
- Dentists sometimes use clove oil to ease tooth pain.
- clove cigarette
- Clove cigarettes have a sweet smell.
Synonyms and how they differ
Word family
- clove oil noun
- oil taken from cloves
- clovey adjective
- tasting or smelling of cloves, informal
- cloven adjective
- split, as in cloven hoof
Commonly confused: clove or clover? clove or cloves?
clove vs clover
Clover is a small green plant with three leaves, unrelated to the spice.
clove vs cloves
Cloves can mean either the spice or garlic segments depending on context.
Practice
A recipe asks for two cloves of garlic. What does that mean?
Choose one answer.
A clove of garlic is one small segment of a bulb. Two whole bulbs would be far more than the recipe intends.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “clove”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.