a. Also 4–5 clove-fote, 4–6 clove-foted, -footed, 6 cloven-foted. [f. cloven foot, CLOVEN c.] Having the foot divided into distinct toes; esp. having a divided hoof as ruminant quadrupeds; also applied to the devil, Satanic. Hence Cloven-footedness.
1415. E. E. Wills (1882), 23. All cloue-fote bestes that I haue.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XII. xxxiii. (Tollem. MS.). The ostriche … is cloffoted [1495 cloue fotyd] as a foure fotid beste.
1467. Bury Wills (1850), 46. Hennys and fowlys clovefotyd.
1572. Bossewell, Armorie, II. 56 b. A wilde beaste, clouefooted.
1523. Fitzherb., Husb., § 146. All hole-footed fowles … and all clouenfooted fowles.
1611. Bible, Levit. xi. 7. The swine, though he diuide the hoofe, and be clouen footed.
1622. Massinger & Dekker, Virgin Martyr, III. iii. Wks. 1873, IV. 57. The Divel; He ’s no such horrid creature, cloven footed … As these lying Christians make him.
1691. Ray, Creation, II. (1714), 205. Great variety of Water-fowl, both whole and cloven-footed, frequent the Waters and feed there.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1852), I. 57. The cloven-footed tyrant inveigles the unwary.
1656. [? J. Sergeant], trans. T. White’s Peripat. Inst., 216. Cloven-footednesse includes pedality.
