cleave: [OE] There are two distinct verbs cleave in English, both of Germanic origin. Cleave ‘cut’ comes from Germanic *kleuban, which goes back to an Indo-European base *gleubh- (this also produced Greek glúphein ‘carve’, source of English hieroglyphics). Cleave ‘adhere’ can be traced back ultimately to an Indo-European base *gloi-, *glei-, *gli- ‘stick’, from which English also gets glue and gluten. Its Germanic descendant *klai- produced English clay and clammy, and *kli- developed into cleave. => clammy, clay, climb, glue, hieroglyphics
cleave (v.1)
"to split," Old English cleofan, cleven, cliven "to split, separate" (class II strong verb, past tense cleaf, past participle clofen), from Proto-Germanic *kleuban (cognates: Old Saxon klioban, Old Norse kljufa, Danish klöve, Dutch kloven, Old High German klioban, German klieben "to cleave, split"), from PIE root *gleubh- "to cut, slice" (see glyph).
Past tense form clave is recorded in Northern writers from 14c. and was used with both verbs (see cleave (v.2)), apparently by analogy with other Middle English strong verbs. Clave was common to c. 1600 and still alive at the time of the KJV; weak past tense cleaved for this verb also emerged in 14c.; cleft is still later. The past participle cloven survives, though mostly in compounds.
cleave (v.2)
"to adhere," Middle English cleven, clevien, cliven, from Old English clifian, cleofian, from West Germanic *klibajan (cognates: Old Saxon klibon, Old High German kliban, Dutch kleven, Old High German kleben, German kleben "to stick, cling, adhere"), from PIE *gloi- "to stick" (see clay). The confusion was less in Old English when cleave (v.1) was a class 2 strong verb; but it has grown since cleave (v.1) weakened, which may be why both are largely superseded by stick (v.) and split (v.).
