the.com/cleaver
the blade that solves arguments with bone by sheer enthusiasm and weight.
means A heavy, broad-bladed knife or hatchet used to chop through meat and bone, especially in a butcher's kitchen.
from Straight from the verb 'cleave,' meaning to split or cut apart — from Old English 'cleofan.' Oddly, English has two 'cleave' verbs that are near-opposites: this one (to split asunder) and another meaning to cling or stick fast (as in 'cleave unto'). The cleaver belongs firmly to the splitting camp — it's simply 'the thing that cleaves,' a doer-noun built the same way 'baker' comes from 'bake.'
- design logic
- Heavy enough to chop through bone unsharpened
- chinese cleaver
- Thin slicer, not the bone-crushing brute
- flat side
- Doubles as a garlic-smashing hammer
- butcher origin
- Named for cleave, to split apart
- weight wins
- Momentum does the cutting, not the edge
meat cleaver — chinese kitchen knife with 8-inch blade used for butchering meat and bones since ancient times
clever hans — horse in early 1900s berlin that appeared to solve math problems by tapping its hoof