June 6, 1996

cleave

Why does "cleave" seem to mean two totally opposite things? You can cleave to something, to stick to it, but you can cleave something, meaning to cut it in two.

There are two main ways that a word can have contradictory meanings. In one case, exemplified by overlook, a word can develop in two different directions semantically. One way is 'to look (something) over; scrutinize; peruse; supervise', and the other is 'to look over and thus not see; disregard'. Both of these meanings developed logically, but they are opposite. (Since this can be confusing, the result in English is that the sense 'scrutinize' is now somewhat rare. The word oversee is normally used instead to mean 'scrutinize' or 'supervise'--but oversee itself once had a sense 'disregard'!)

The second case is exemplified by cleave: two totally different, etymologically unrelated words have fallen together. One word is from the Old English cleofian, and means 'to adhere closely and faithfully; cling', as in "to cleave to one's principles." The other word is from the Old English cleofan (with a long "e"), and means 'to split or divide by or as if by cutting blow', as in "to cleave wood," or figuratively as in "that issue will cleave the Republican party." In this case, though the two words were originally distinct, natural language changes have made their forms in Modern English identical, so they appear to be the same word. This is a common process in English, but only attracts much notice when it results in such obviously divergent meanings.