clivant (French)
Where does "clivant" come from?
French clivant means “divisive” and is built from the verb cliver, “to split” or “cleave.” Cliver comes from a learned scientific use of cliver in French, modeled on English cleave in the sense “to split,” which goes back through Old English to Proto-Germanic roots meaning “to split or stick.” The adjective clivant is therefore a modern French formation meaning, literally, “splitting,” and from there “socially or politically divisive.”
Updated March 2026
Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris