Past tense of calve; gave birth to a calf, or (of a glacier) broke apart and shed ice.
Regular past tense formation from calve, adding -ed. Maintains the same meaning as the base verb in both its agricultural and glaciological contexts.
A cow that has just 'calved' is extremely protective of her newborn, and farmers know to approach carefully—similarly, when a glacier 'calved' an iceberg that scientists were studying, it completely changed our understanding of how fast ice shelves were collapsing.
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