A comment from elenchos on a post earlier this week on the etymology of “leer” vs. “leery”:

Don’t look up “cleave,” if you want to keep any faith that English means what it says it means.

No joke. “Cleave” means both to adhere and to split, to come together and to fly apart, from two different, but similar-sounding Proto-Indo-European bases: gloi and gleubh.

cleave (2)
“to adhere,” O.E. clifian, from W.Gmc. *klibajanan, from PIE *gloi– “to stick.” The confusion was less in O.E. when cleave (1) was a class 2 strong verb and cleave (2) a class 1 verb; but it has grown since cleave (1) weakened, which may be why both are largely superseded by stick and split.

cleave (1)
“to split,” O.E. cleofan “to split, separate” (class II strong verb, past tense cleaf, past participle clofen), from P.Gmc. *kleubanan, from PIE base *gleubh– “to cut, slice.” Past tense form clave is recorded in Northern writers from 14c. and was used with both verbs (see cleave (2)), apparently by analogy with other ME strong verbs. Common to c.1600 and still alive at the time of the King James Bible; weak p.t. cleaved also emerged in 14c. for this verb; cleft is still later. The p.p. cloven survives, though mostly in compounds.

If you want to dive into strong verbs and weak verbs see here. If you want to dive into cleavage, see here:

cleavage
1816, in geology, “action of splitting (rocks or gems) along natural fissures,” from cleave (1). General meaning “action or state of cleaving or being cleft” is from 1867. The sense of “cleft between a woman’s breasts in low-cut clothing” is first recorded 1946, when it was defined in a “Time” magazine article as the “Johnston Office trade term for the shadowed depression dividing an actress’ bosom into two distinct sections” [Aug. 5].

The cleavage that bothered the Johnston Office wasn’t reveled by modern fashions—it was revealed by period ones. From the early usages in the OED:

1946 Time 5 Aug. 98 Low-cut Restoration costumes..display too much ‘cleavage’ (Johnston Office trade term for the shadowed depression dividing an actress’ bosom into two distinct sections). 1947 Landfall I. 45 It [sc. a film] just goes all out to exploit sex and violence as blatantly as it can, with the result that ‘cleavage’ has once again become a problem to haunt the dreams of censors. 1958 Spectator 6 June 729/1 Kids have to learn not to copy the stars. I tell them, cleavage won’t get you to the top. Sex is something different. It’s not obvious.

Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....

14 replies on “Etymology of the Day: Cleave and Cleavage”

  4. There are three words in English that do this, to “kiss ambivalence on both cheeks” as William Matthews said.

    “Dust” (v.) is another. I can’t think of the third.

  5. They aren’t the same word. Cleave – to split – takes a direct object. Cleave – to adhere – requires a prepositional phrase – cleave to, cleave unto, etc. There’s no ambiguity. It’s no more ambiguous than *to come* which can mean to arrive, but can also mean to encounter *to come upon*.

  6. Hmm…I always thought that cleave referred to something that was split, but still connected. For example you can cleave something and create a gash, but if you separate it into two parts you’ve SPLIT it.

    So the dual meaning actually makes sense if you take that into account, I feel.

  7. I would like to nominate “oversight”, a noun meaning both “an omission or error due to carelessness” and “supervision; watchful care”.

  12. Dear god, please don’t let this become a daily feature. And if so, have some decency, and put most of it behind the jump. Hint for Brendan – simply posting snippets from a dictionary doesn’t make riveting reading. If I wanted to read a dictionary, I’d read a dictionary.

  13. @2&12: Some of us like this geeky stuff. You don’t have to read it.

    Dust is another contranym (or auto-antonym). When I dust my house, I’m removing dust, but when the police dust a crime scene, they’re adding dust to find fingerprints.

    I’m so glad that English is my first language; I’d hate to have to learn it as an adult. I still mess it up regularly, and I’ve been speaking/writing/reading it since childhood.

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