calve
verb/kɑːv/
/kæv/
Verb Forms
| present simple I / you / we / they calve | /kɑːv/ /kæv/ |
| he / she / it calves | /kɑːvz/ /kævz/ |
| past simple calved | /kɑːvd/ /kævd/ |
| past participle calved | /kɑːvd/ /kævd/ |
| -ing form calving | /ˈkɑːvɪŋ/ /ˈkævɪŋ/ |
- [intransitive] (of a cow) to give birth to a calfOxford Collocations DictionaryCalve is used with these nouns as the subject:Topics Animalsc2
- cow
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- [transitive] calve something if an iceberg, a glacier, etc. calves a piece of ice, the ice breaks away from it Topics Geographyc2
- [intransitive] calve (from something) (of a large piece of ice) to break away from an iceberg, a glacier, etc.
- The iceberg probably calved from the ice shelf in early November.
Word OriginOld English calfian, from cælf ‘calf’.
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calve