...you know, that area where a breast cleaves from the other breast?

[4thofeleven]

Idly flipping through a book of euphemisms, I learned today that the word 'cleavage' was first recorded in the mid-1940s.

I find it hard to believe the English language survived for as long as it did before coining such a useful term.

I'm now wondering - do other languages have a word for cleavage, and do they predate the english term?

Comments

[sener4senate.livejournal.com]

You're probably aware that 'cleave' itself is one of those few words that both means to separate apart, and also to stick together.

Example,

CARE

Though of ear unheard, the groaning

Heart is conscious of my moaning;

In ever changing guise

Cruel power I exercise.

On the highway, on the billow,

Cleave I close, a carking fellow;

Ever found, an unsought guest,

Ever cursed and aye caressed.

Hast though not Care already known?

-- Faust, Goethe.

In the above, 'cleave' is the Carer adhering to the carking fellow, like a parasitic leech.