What does "rift" mean?

Rift: An opening made by riving or splitting; a cleft; a fissure. Spenser.

Additional senses

  1. 2.A shallow place in a stream; a ford.
  2. 3.To cleave; to rive; to split; as, to rift an oak or a rock; to rift the clouds. Longfellow. To dwell these rifted rocks between. Wordsworth.
  3. 4.To burst open; to split. Shak. Timber . . . not apt to rif with ordnance. Bacon.
  4. 5.To belch. [Prov. Eng. & Scot.]

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