"Cleave from" isn't a valid construction. A little boy cleaves to his mother's leg, but you wouldn't say he later cleaves from it. Similarly, you can cleave a l

"Cleave from" isn't a valid construction. A little boy cleaves to his mother's leg, but you wouldn't say he later cleaves from it. Similarly, you can cleave a log with an axe (notice no preposition), but you can't cleave it again with all the nails in the world. (Though you could cleave one piece back to the other.) Notwithstanding the verbs' transitivity, they also have distinct etymologies. From the same Wikipedia article: > For instance cleave "separate" is from Old English clēofan, while cleave "adhere" is from Old English clifian, which was pronounced differently.