Used by butchers to hack joints of meat in two, cleavers ultimately derive their name from an Indo-European source, pronounced something like gleubh, meaning to cut apart or to carve. This ancient source evolved into the Germanic word kleuban, which then developed into the English word cleave in the eleventh century; it was from this word that cleaver, the name of the butcher’s tool, was formed in the late sixteenth century. Oddly another cleave also exists in English, one that does not mean to cut apart but rather to stick together: during a marriage ceremony, for example, a minister might advise the bride and groom to “cleave together” in times of hardship. This cleave, however, is unrelated to the other cleave, deriving instead from an Indo-European source, pronounced something like gloi, that meant to stick; the word glue also derives from the same sticky source, as does the word day.<\/p>\n
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Used by butchers to hack joints of meat in two, cleavers ultimately derive their name from an Indo-European source, pronounced something like gleubh, meaning to cut apart or to carve. This ancient source evolved into the Germanic word kleuban, which then developed into the English word cleave in the eleventh century; it was from this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c"],"yoast_head":"\n