Of course, Beaver Cleaver’s father was played by Hugh Beaumont, so there’s that.

Dear Word Detective: The words “hew” and “cleave” both have the same odd combination of meanings: “to cut,” or “to stick to.” Are they related? — Ken Lerner.

Um, yes and no. Next question. Oh, all right. No, they’re not really related in the sense of “having an etymological relationship” or “having some family connection that Cleave takes advantage of by borrowing Hew’s lawn trimmer.” The only attribute shared by “hew” and “cleave” is membership in the weird little club of English words known as “autoantonyms,” words with two opposite meanings (“auto” self, “anti” against, and “onyma,” Greek for “name”). Autoantonyms are also known as “contronyms,” “contranyms,” “antagonyms” and, in a refreshing break from all those “nyms,” sometimes as “Janus words.” Janus was the Roman god of doorways and beginnings (thus “January,” the first month in the Roman calendar), and was depicted as having two faces (as doors can be used from two sides).

“Contranyms,” which is the simplest name for the breed, actually come in two flavors. Some are simply one word which has, over time and in a linguistic process called “polysemy” (Greek for “many signs”), developed two opposite meanings. The other kind of contranyms are homographs, two separate words that happen to share the same spelling, and are also antonyms, words that have opposite meanings. The result in both types of contranyms is a word which seems to have two meanings, but in the case of homographs, that’s because it actually is two separate words. “Hew” and “cleve” are actually good examples of the two kinds of contranyms. (However, the fact that the two opposite meanings of “hew” are essentially synonymous with the two opposite meanings of “cleave” is deeply spooky and ought to give us all the creeps.)

“Hew” is the first kind of contranym, the “gradual change in meaning” kind. We inherited “hew” from Old English (where it was “heawan”), and its basic meaning was “to cut or strike with a cutting tool or weapon; to chop, hack, etc.” Trees and the like have often been “hewed” with axes (or “hewn,” if a poet is doing the job), but the verb has also often been used in descriptions of battles in a depressingly non-metaphorical sense (“The front lines, hewing at each other with their long swords,” Sir Walter Scott, 1828). But from day one, “hew” also had a more constructive meaning, that of “to shape, smooth, trim or form with an axe or a hammer and chisel, etc.” This sense is most often found today in the adjective “rough-hewn,” meaning something which has been shaped by chopping, etc., but lacks precise shaping and polish (“A long oaken table formed of planks rough-hewn from the forest … stood ready prepared for the evening meal,” Scott, Ivanhoe, 1819). But even such “hewing” required following a design for the finished product, and “to hew the line,” which first appeared in print in 1891, meant to cut closely along the line of a pattern. In a metaphorical sense, “hew the line” meant, and still does, “to stick to a plan and to obey instructions,” and “to hew” to something (e.g., your family, your principles) means to remain steadfast in your allegiance. So a verb which originally meant “to split apart” came to be its own antonym meaning “to conform, obey, adhere to.”

“Cleave” also means both “to split” and “to adhere,” but in this case the explanation is simpler, because the two opposite senses of “cleave” are actually two separate words and always have been. Both “cleaves” come from Old English and derive their base meanings from proto-Germanic roots. One “cleave” in Old English was “cleofan,” meaning “to split or separate,” especially by a blow from a sharp instrument. The past participle of this “cleve” is “cleft” (or “cloven”), meaning “split,” as in a “cleft palate” or the “cloven hooves” of a goat.

The other “cleave” was “clifian” in Old English, meaning “to stick, to adhere” (the same Germanic root gave us “clay”), and in literal use it’s essentially a synonym of “stick” (“Water in small quantity cleaveth to any thing that is solid,” Francis Bacon, 1626).  In modern English, this “cleave” is usually used in a figurative sense to mean “to remain faithful or devoted to” a person, cause, etc. (“We exhort you … to cleave for ever to those principles,” Edmund Burke, 1777). The two “cleaves” were originally clearly two separate words, but they had such a wide variety of forms that, beginning in the 14th century, they were commonly confused, which led to a common spelling, which only made things much murkier.

So in “cleave” and “hew” we have two (or three) words that are, in a sense, both double antonyms and double synonyms, and only by close attention to context can a reader or listener be certain of the meaning meant. That’s a prescription for bewilderment, and that potential for confusion is probably the reason that neither “hew” nor “cleave” is very popular outside of historical fiction today.

 A little dab’ll do you.

Dear Word Detective: Recently, a foreign forum user asked what “lick” is supposed to mean. The phrase he was referring to was “Worth a lick.” I was a bit perplexed that your cats hadn’t asked. — Richard Clow.

Well, perhaps they have. I stopped listening to them after they suggested I buy stock in Facebook. It was one of those rare times I’m glad I don’t have any money, because if I had had any money and had spent it on that, I wouldn’t have any money anymore. People say that Facebook can’t possibly collapse because they have, like, six billion users or something, but those people need to (a) Google “tulipomania,” (b) read Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias” a few times, and (c) check out the recent business history of Myspace. Sometime soon the only people left on Facebook will be (a) parents spying on their own kids, and (b) those sad little strip-mall mattress stores that have “Like Us on Facebook!” signs flashing all night long in darkened and silent small towns in Ohio.

“Lick” as a noun first appeared around 1600, drawn directly from the verb “to lick,” which came from the Old English “liccian,” based on Germanic roots that were probably imitative, i.e., the word imitated the action or sound of licking. As a verb, “lick” means “to pass the tongue over something; to lap at” to taste the thing, moisten it, etc. “To lick” in the sense of “to defeat” (“OSU licked Michigan again in the dreams of many fans”) was originally “lick up,” to vanquish, probably from the Coverdale Bible of 1535, which used the image of an ox “licking up” (eating) all the grass in a field.

In its most basic sense, “lick” as a noun means “an act of licking,” but from early on it was also used to mean “a small amount,” such as the amount of food as could be had in a single lick. Thus “a lick” could simply mean “a small amount of food” (“Everybody brought ‘sunthin’—some a lick of meal, some a punkin’ [etc.],” 1853). But a “lick” of something could be a small amount of anything, even such intangibles as “work” (“But all day yesterday an’ to-day he hain’t worked a lick,” 1902), intelligence (“I was fool enough to argue with him a bit, trying to see if he didn’t have a lick of sense,” 1919), or simply aptitude or ability in anything (“His grandfather was a preacher and he couldn’t read a lick,” 1971). It’s this “small amount” sense of “lick” found in the phrase “worth a lick” in your question.

“Lick” can also be used to mean “a brief or superficial effort,” as in the phrase “a lick and a promise” meaning “a quick washing or cleaning,” the “promise” being an implicit one to do a more thorough job at some later time (“The room, instead of its usual vigorous cleaning, got what Nelly would have called a lick and a promise,” 1934).

The “small” and “brief” connotations of “lick” are are also found in the less cheerful use of “lick” to mean “a quick, smart blow,” especially from a cane, whip or stick, which dates back to the 17th century (“[He] gave the Fellow half a dozen good Licks with his Cane,” 1680). We still use this sense in phrases such as “to take one’s licks,” meaning to accept one’s expected punishment or criticism (“He and his … Socialist Movement have been taking their licks,” 1987).

On the positive side, however, since the 1930s “lick” has been musicians’ slang for a short, dynamic musical phrase or catchy solo inserted into a musical performance (“The blues riff is even better, full of Charlie Parker-like bebop licks,” 1970).