And if I say I cleaved the halves together, you’d have no chance of thinking that I meant I cut them apart. It’s English, you need context to tell what definition is being used for any word with multiple definitions

> I cleaved the halves together

I would say what are you talking about? That makes no grammatical sense.

It does? One definition of cleave is to join or adhere things together. It’s not a new slang definition, you can look it up in any dictionary.

I did look it up in a dictionary.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cleave#Etymology_2

> (intransitive, rare) Followed by' to or unto: to adhere, cling, or stick fast to something.

Something can cleave to another thing, but you can't cleave two things together. It's grammatically the same as the word "cling". You can cling to something but you can't cling two things together. It doesn't make sense.