These words may have the same meaning: initially they referred to split oak boards which were imported from the Baltic and used by coopers for barrel-staves.
To cleave wood was to split it along the grain, using iron wedges and a heavy hammer: ‘cleft’ and its variants referred to pieces of cleft wood or board.
Usually associated now with coagulated blood but also a word for hardened lumps of earth, a meaning now given to ‘clod’ which shares the same etymology.
An officer appointed by the Justices of Peace whose task it was to examine finished cloths in any of the clothiers’ workplaces, to ensure that no deceitful stretching or tentering had taken place.
A word of Old English origin, on record from a.700. As a substantive it referred commonly to metal plates which were nailed to those parts of carts, ploughs and wains that were subject to wear and tear.