cleavage
cleav·age/ˈkliːvɪd͡ʒ/noun
cleavage is spelled C-L-E-A-V-A-G-E, 2 syllables: cleav·age. The wrong spelling people search most is clevage: about 1,210 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Cleavage is a noun meaning “The act of cleaving or the state of being cleft”. The plural of cleavage is cleavages.
How many letters and syllables are in cleavage?
| Letters | 8: C-L-E-A-V-A-G-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2: cleav·age |
| In writing | 2.5 times per million words; the 17,122nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, clevage, about 1,210 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell cleavage?
Cleavage is spelled C-L-E-A-V-A-G-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for cleavage in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is cleavage?
Cleavage appears 2.5 times per million words in written English, the 17,122nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce cleavage?
- /ˈkliːvɪd͡ʒ/
- [ˈkʰlɪi̯vɪd͡ʒ]
- /ˈkliːvəd͡ʒ/
Cleavage has 2 syllables, split cleav·age in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-au-cleavage.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of cleavage
- cleavages plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does cleavage mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The act of cleaving or the state of being cleft.
- 2
The hollow or separation between a woman's breasts, especially as revealed by a low neckline.
Holonym: décolletage
- 3
Any similar separation between two body parts, such as the buttocks or toes.
- 4
The repeated division of a cell into daughter cells after mitosis.
- 5
The splitting of a large molecule into smaller ones.
- 6
The tendency of a crystal to split along specific planes; schistosity.
- 7
The division of voters into voting blocs.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Cleavage in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | clivage , décolleté , division |
| German | Kluft, Teilung, Spaltung, Abspaltung, Abschälung , Dekolletee |
| Portuguese | clivagem, rachamento, rachadura , entresseio |
| Spanish | canalillo, escote, descote, escotadura , división , exfoliación |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does cleavage come from?
From cleave + -age.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).