Quantum is the same way. It can mean either a tiny thing, a small portion, or a heaping great amount.

To be fair to cleave, it apparently started out as two different words that ran into each other. Like Colonel and kernel, but without the sense to spell them differently.

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Whose...... I think I'm spending to much time with the 10 and under crowd and not enuff with the 'old' crowd.... which is over 18 if you ask a second grader.

I find cleave a funny word. As there are two 'rules' we teach. "Two vowels go walking the first does the talking" so ea would say e (long e) and there's "Magic e makes the vowel says its name." So the e at the end makes the e say e (long e). Just made me chuckle sorry.

The "ea" is especially funny as you write tear but could mean two different things. The tear = drop and the tear = rip.

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I was working with a student this morning and the book we were working in had ear, but with the long e sound after I had told him that that line about the e made it says it's name. Sometimes the english language ticks me off. There r rules but every rule is broken at some point or other.

I can see you are a breaker of rules, Colonel. Either that or your just trying to piss me off.

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Flange is my favourite English word, sounds so dirty (hur hur hur, look at 'er flange!) yet so mundane

Cleave is part of a group of words called contranyms (definitions are opposites). I was fascinated with these a few years back and the list is much larger than you might think.

Here is a sampling:
left (remaining, departed)
chuffed (pleased, displeased)
dust (to add dust to crops, to remove dust from a surface)

The list is huge, though.

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carlos, I am sorry. I am not trying to make you mad.

never in my entire life have I heard chuffed be used to mean displeased. For example, "I'm so chuffed that Argentina/ Brasil/ France (grr) etc. beat England in the World Cup" would not be a good idea in a packed pub.

I've not heard chuffed used over here either, so I don't think it's an American vs. English thing.

Only ever heard Chuffed to mean pleased here in the UK.

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The english language is a silly thing

It can't even keep to it's own rules!
i before e except after c ... and science and conscience and their and vein...

I've never seen chuffed used outside people who spent time in the UK, and it was used to mean pleased.

I before e except after c actually isn't a rule, since there's more counterexamples than actual examples.

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And yet there it is in black & white...
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/chuffed

Glad I can educate the British on their own slang. It makes me feel superior. Well, more superior than I already feel.

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It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

I'd say that the negative version of its usage has probably fallen out of common usage in modern times, certainly I've not heard it used in that manner.

"Ill" and "Wicked" do mean good, now, mind you. ;-)

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Its still used in Yorkshire - at least by my in laws anyway

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