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Crew vs Clew - What's the difference?

crew | clew |

In obsolete|lang=en terms the difference between crew and clew

is that crew is (obsolete) any company of people; an assemblage; a throng while clew is (obsolete) a roughly spherical mass or body.

In nautical|lang=en terms the difference between crew and clew

is that crew is (nautical) to take on, recruit (new) crew while clew is (nautical) (transitive and intransitive) to raise the lower corner(s) of (a sail).

As nouns the difference between crew and clew

is that crew is a group of people (often staff) manning and operating a large facility or piece of equipment such as a factory, ship, boat, or airplane or crew can be (british|dialectal) a pen for livestock such as chickens or pigs or crew can be the manx shearwater while clew is (obsolete) a roughly spherical mass or body.

As verbs the difference between crew and clew

is that crew is to be a member of a vessel's crew or crew can be (british) (crow) to have made the characteristic sound of a rooster while clew is to roll into a ball.

crew

English

Etymology 1

from (etyl), from (etyl)

Noun

(en noun)
  • A group of people (often staff) manning and operating a large facility or piece of equipment such as a factory, ship, boat, or airplane
  • If you need help, please contact a member of the crew .
    The crews of the two ships got into a fight.
  • A member of the crew of a vessel or plant
  • One crew died in the accident.
  • (obsolete) Any company of people; an assemblage; a throng.
  • * Spenser
  • There a noble crew / Of lords and ladies stood on every side.
  • * Milton
  • Faithful to whom? to thy rebellious crew ?
  • A member of a ship's company who is not an officer
  • The officers and crew assembled on the deck.
    ''There are quarters for three officers and five crew .
  • (arts) The group of workers on a dramatic production who are not part of the cast
  • There are a lot of carpenters in the crew !
    The crews for different movies would all come down to the bar at night.
  • A worker on a dramatic production who is not part of the cast
  • There were three actors and six crew on the set.
  • A group of people working together on a task
  • The crews competed to cut the most timber.
  • A close group of friends
  • I'd look out for that whole crew down at Jack's.
  • A set of individuals lumped together by the speaker
  • * 1861 William Weston Patton, (version of) John Brown's Body
  • He captured Harper’s Ferry, with his nineteen men so few,
    And frightened "Old Virginny" till she trembled thru and thru;
    They hung him for a traitor, they themselves the traitor crew ,
    But his soul is marching on.
  • * {{quote-book, 1950, Bernard Nicholas Schilling, Conservative England and the Case Against Voltaire, page=266 citation
  • , passage=Malignant principles bear fruit in kind and the Revolution did no more than practice what men had been taught by the abandoned crew of philosophers. }}
  • (slang, hip-hop) A hip-hop group
  • * {{quote-book, 2003, Jennifer Guglielmo & Salvatore Salerno, Are Italians White?, page=150 citation
  • , passage=We decided we needed another rapper in the crew and spent months looking.}}
  • (sports, rowing, uncountable) The sport of competitive rowing.
  • * {{quote-book, 1989, & Mary Morgan, Spock on Spock citation
  • , passage=Two Andover classmates, Al Wilson and Al Lindley, both went out for crew in our freshman year at Yale.}}
  • (rowing) A rowing team manning a single shell.
  • * {{quote-book, 1888, , Boating citation
  • , passage=If a crew feather much under water, it is a good plan to seat them in a row on a bench, and give each man a stick to handle as an oar.}} Image:STS-87_crew_1.jpg, Crew of a spaceship Image:Toronto female rowing team.jpg, Crew of a rowing shell Image:ScottKalittaDragsterPits.jpg, Crew working on a race car Image:Daara J.jpg, A hip-hop crew
    Synonyms
    * (group manning a vessel) ship's company, all hands, complement * (member of a crew) crewer, member; nautical only : sailor, seaman * (non-officer ship worker) seaman * (non-cast dramatic personnel) staff, stagehand * (group engaged in a task) team, gang * (social group) clique, gang, pack, crowd, bunch, lot (UK); posse * (group lumped together) crowd, flock, lot, gang * (hip-hop group) posse, band, group
    Derived terms
    * crew cut * crewless * crewman * crew mate * ground crew/groundcrew * motley crew * skeleton crew

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To be a member of a vessel's crew
  • We crewed together on a fishing boat last year.
    The ship was crewed by fifty sailors.
  • To be a member of a work or production crew
  • The film was crewed and directed by students.
  • To supply workers or sailors for a crew
  • * {{quote-book, 2003, Kirk C. Jenkins, The Battle Rages Higher, isbn=0813122813, page=42 citation
  • , passage= Steele crewed the boat with men from his own regiment and volunteers from John Wood's detachment.}}
  • (nautical) To do the proper work of a sailor
  • The crewing of the vessel before the crash was deficient.
  • (nautical) To take on, recruit (new) crew
  • * {{quote-news, 1967, January, , Tampa, The Pilot, page=30 citation
  • , passage=The two ships will be crewing in the latter half of September.}}
    Derived terms
    * crewer * uncrewed * crew up

    Etymology 2

    Verb

    (head)
  • (British) (crow) To have made the characteristic sound of a rooster.
  • It was still dark when the cock crew .

    Etymology 3

    Probably of (etyl) origin.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (British, dialectal) A pen for livestock such as chickens or pigs
  • * {{quote-book, 2004, , On the Edge, page=7 citation
  • , passage=Between the shippon and the pig-crew , with the wind blowing over from the vegetable ground.}}

    Etymology 4

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The Manx shearwater.
  • (Webster 1913)

    See also

    * *

    clew

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) A roughly spherical mass or body.
  • * c. 1600 , , tr. Richard Surflet, Maison Rustique, or, The Countrie Farme :
  • If the whole troupe be diuided into many clewes , or round bunches, you need not then doubt but that there are many kings.
  • * 1796 , , The Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam :
  • Both these creatures, by forming themselves in a clew , have often more the appearance of excrescences in the bark, than that of animals.
  • (archaic) A ball of thread or yarn.
  • * c. 1604-5 , , All's Well That Ends Well , Act 1, Scene 3:
  • If it be ?o, you have wound a goodly clew :
    If it be not, for?wear't: howe'er, I charge thee,
  • * 1831 , :
  • A rare, precious, and never interrupted race of philosophers to whom wisdom, like another Ariadne, seems to have given a clew of thread which they have been walking along unwinding since the beginning of the world, through the labyrinth of human affairs.
  • * 1889 , ":
  • The Fairy Paribanou was at that time very hard at work, and, as she had several clews' of thread by her, she took up one, and, presenting it to Prince Ahmed, said: "First take this ' clew of thread...
  • * 1962 , , Pale Fire :
  • on one side of her lay a pair of carpet slippers and on the other a ball of red wool, the leading filament of which she would tug at every now and then with the immemorial elbow jerk of a Zemblan knitter to give a turn to her yarn clew and slacken the thread.
  • Yarn or thread as used to guide one's way through a maze or labyrinth; a guide, a clue.
  • *
  • Therto have I a remedie in my thoght,
    That, by a clewe of twyne, as he hath goon,
    The same wey he may returne anoon,
    Folwing alwey the threed, as he hath come.
  • * 1766 , , The Sermons of Mr. Yorick :
  • With this clew , let us endeavour to unravel this character of Herod as here given.
  • * 1841 , , The Murders in the Rue Morgue :
  • To this horrible mystery there is not as yet, we believe, the slightest clew .
  • * 1870 , , History of the Norman Conquest :
  • We may here have lighted on the clew to the great puzzle.
  • * 1917 , :
  • They had followed immediately behind him, thinking it barely possible that his actions might prove a clew to my whereabouts...
  • * 1923 , :
  • And I brought the only clew to be found.
  • * 1926 , Robertus Love, The Rise and Fall of Jesse James , University of Nebraska, 1990:
  • Not often did Jesse James leave a clew to his identity when he galloped away from a crime of violence, back into the mysterious Nowhere whence he came.
  • (nautical) The lower corner(s) of a sail to which a sheet is attached for trimming the sail (adjusting its position relative to the wind); the metal loop or cringle in the corner of the sail, to which the sheet is attached. On a triangular sail, the clew is the trailing corner relative to the wind direction.
  • * 1858 , Walter Mitchell,
  • 'Mid the rattle of blocks and the tramp of the crew,
    Hisses the rain of the rushing squall;
    The sails are aback from clew' to ' clew ,
    And now is the moment for "MAINSAIL, HAUL!"
  • * 1858 , The Atlantic Monthly , "":
  • "Clew'" is Saxon; "garnet" (from granato, a fruit) is Italian,—that is, the garnet- or pomegranate-shaped block fastened to the ' clew or corner of the courses, and hence the rope running through the block.
  • * 1894 , :
  • I went over and asked him to let down the clews or corners of the mainsail, which had been drawn up in order to lessen the useless flapping of the sail against the rigging.
  • * 1901 , :
  • "Run aft, Haldane, and you too, Spokeshave. Loosen the bunt of the mizzen-trysail and haul at the clew . That’ll bring her up to the wind fast enough, if the sail only stands it!"
  • (in the plural) The sheets so attached to a sail.
  • * 1913 ,
  • The canvas running up in a proud sweep,
    Wind-wrinkled at the clews , and white like lint,
  • (nautical, in the plural) The cords suspending a hammock.
  • * 2000 , Ralph W Danklefsen, The Navy I Remember , Xlibris 2000, p. 21:
  • He taught us how to attach the clews to the ends of the hammock and then lash it between jack stays.
  • * 1864 , Andrew Forrester, The Female Detective :
  • Now, the fact is, I had started because I thought I saw the end of a good clew .
  • * 1910 , "Duck Eats Yeast," The Yakima Herald :
  • Telltale marks around the pan of yeast gave him a clew to the trouble.
  • * Macaulay
  • The clew , without which it was perilous to enter the vast and intricate maze of Continental politics, was in his hands.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • to roll into a ball
  • (nautical) (transitive and intransitive) to raise the lower corner(s) of (a sail)
  • See also

    * clew-garnet * clef * clue