Cloven means split or divided into two parts. The word appears most often in “cloven hoof,” describing the split-in-two foot structure of animals like deer, goats, sheep, and cattle. If you look at a goat's foot, you'll see it looks like it's wearing a two-toed shoe: that's a cloven hoof, divided down the middle into two distinct sections.

This split design helps these animals grip rocky terrain and climb slopes that would be impossible for animals with solid hooves like horses. Goats scramble up near-vertical cliffs using their cloven hooves to grab onto tiny ledges and cracks.

In old stories and medieval art, the devil often appears with cloven hooves, which is why some people used to fear goats or associate them with evil. That's just superstition: goats are ordinary farm animals, and their split hooves are simply an adaptation that helps them move across difficult ground.

You might occasionally see cloven used to describe other split things, like a cloven rock or a cloven tongue, though the hoof usage is by far the most common.