cleave

cleave to (one)

To have sex with one (typically a spouse) only, and no one else. I would never cheat on my husband—after all, I vowed to cleave to him until my dying day.
See also: cleave
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

cleave to someone

to be sexually faithful, usually to one's husband. (Biblical. As in the traditional marriage ceremony, "And cleave only unto him.") She promised to cleave only to him for the rest of her life.
See also: cleave
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • cleave to
  • cleave to (one)
  • drive (one) out of office
  • force (one) out of office
  • force out of office
  • give (one) (one's) head
  • give head
  • cooking for one
  • 1FTR
  • as one door closes, another opens
References in periodicals archive
In those early, difficult days of World War II, Cleave's characters, both at home and on the battlefield, confront not just privation but shocking and unexpected losses, something Cleave brilliantly conveys to his readers.
Cleave uses Sophie's arrival to heap guilt on every adult character in the book, and he flogs that guilt nonstop until his story is over.
The good news is that Cleave enjoys his cycling again, after a year out of the saddle.
If there is one thing to say about Cleave's writing, it is harrowingly shocking and not in a bad way.
Van Cleave, formerly from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and her colleagues also determined that parents of children with special health care needs (CSHCN) are more satisfied with well-child visits when more illness-related subjects are discussed and less satisfied if expectations for discussing the child's illness are unmet.
Van Cleave, formerly of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and her colleagues also determined that parents of children with special health care needs (CSHCN) are more satisfied with well-child visits when more illness-related subjects are discussed and less satisfied if expectations for discussing the child's illness are unmet.
Because of their ability to cleave DNA at specific recognition sites, restriction enzymes have played an integral role in cloning, which is perhaps their most common application.
n Semi-final draw: Heat 1: 1 Cleave Hill, 2 Vancouver Sparky, 3 Final Show Down, 4 Ballymac Floss, 5 Costly Flight, 6 Deer field Mover.
Elton John writes a song called "England's Heart is Bleeding." These jabs at America's ubiquitous "fallen heroes" memorials, yellow ribbons, and boot-in-your-ass country ballads are facile, but they do raise a point--though not the one Cleave intends.
The newly-discovered enzymes can identify and cleave specific sequences of single-strand RNAs.
The Liberal government, aided and abetted by ideologically driven courts, has launched a major attack on every Christian in Canada who accepts the Bible as the rule of faith and practice (for all who cleave to traditional marriage will be viewed as bigots and discriminators).
During the Vietnam War, the story of black soldiers who rebelled against the army's murderous racism is one example of how war and its effects can cleave along the issue of race.
But he discovers that his shadow, Cass Cleave, also has an unbalanced self.
Ribozymes are small catalytic RNAs that specifically cleave single-stranded RNA targets.