Past tense of 'cleave': to split or cut something into two parts, or (archaic) to stick closely to someone or something.
From Old English 'cleofan' (to split apart). Interestingly, 'cleave' has a homonym from Old English 'clifian' meaning to stick or adhere, creating two verbs with opposite meanings spelled identically.
The word 'cleaved' is tricky because there are actually two different 'cleave' verbs in English—one means to split apart, the other means to cling to; using 'cleaved' in different contexts shows how English inherited contradictory words that happen to look identical.
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