clew

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English clewe, also clue,^[2][3] inherited from Old English cliwen (“ball, globular body; ball of thread”), also cleowen and clywen.^[4][5][6] The OED takes the Middle English forms without a final -n as the Old English word with its ending lost, rather than a separate formation.^[4] The Old English noun corresponds to Middle Low German kluwen and Dutch kluwen, and is probably a diminutive of the word seen in Old High German kliu and kliuwi, ball;^[4][7][6] the diminutive Middle High German kliuwel, altered by dissimilation to kniuwel, gave German Knäuel, ball of thread.^[4][2] Etymonline traces it through Proto-West Germanic *kleuwin, also the source of Old Saxon cleuwin, to Proto-Germanic *kliwjo-,^[8] and Wiktionary gives *kliuwiną.^[1] The OED, following Sievers, refers it to a root Proto-Indo-European *gleu- (“to gather into a mass”) and compares Latin glūma;^[4] Klein likewise derives it from a base meaning "to form into a ball", which with a -t- extension also gave Ancient Greek γλουτός (gloutós, “rump”) and Old English clūd, the source of cloud.^[2] Hoad and the Shorter Oxford think it probably related in the end to claw.^[6][7] The spelling clue appears in the 15th century but was not frequent until the 17th; it is now the usual form in the figurative sense, while clew keeps the older and the nautical senses.^[4][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A ball or other globular body, and especially a ball of thread or yarn: both senses are recorded in Old English, in glossaries rendering Latin glomus, in Alfred's translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care, where the hedgehog rolls itself into a ball, and in a charter that lists a ball of good net-yarn.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

The general sense of a round mass lasted until the late 18th century,^[4][7] and the word was also used of a silkworm's cocoon, starting in 1599.^[4] The ball of thread by which Theseus found his way out of the Cretan labyrinth, already in Chaucer's Legend of Good Women (1385), made the word a name for anything that leads a person through a maze or a difficulty;^[4][10][9] by 1725 the literal image was obscured in the meaning "a hint, a key", which is now spelled clue.^[4] Poets also spoke of the clew of life spun by the Fates (from 1615).^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it as thread wound into a ball, quoting Spenser.^[11] Sailors used it from 1627, in John Smith's Sea Grammar, for a lower corner of a sail, to which the ropes that spread and trim it are fastened,^[4] and the verb clew up, to haul the corners of a sail up to the yard before furling, is recorded from 1745;^[4][3] the cords by which a hammock hangs are its clews from 1834.^[4] The OED calls clew the regular word for a ball of thread in Scotland and the north of England,^[4] and Wright's dialect dictionary records it, often spelled clue, from Scotland and Ireland to Devon and Cornwall, quoting Scott's Heart of Midlothian: "There's aye a wimple in a lawyer's clew".^[12]

Timeline

• Old English – a globular body, a ball (obsolete by 1796); a ball of thread or yarn.^[4][5]
• 1385 – the ball of thread that guides a hero through a labyrinth, in Chaucer.^[4]
• c. 1420 – verb, to coil up into a ball.^[4]
• 1599 – the cocoon of a silkworm.^[4]
• 1600 – a round bunch or cluster (obsolete by 1669).^[4]
• 1615 – the thread of life spun by the Fates.^[4]
• 1627 – a lower corner of a sail.^[4]
• 1725 – a hint or key to follow, with the literal sense obscured (now usually clue).^[4]
• 1745 – verb, clew up, to haul up the lower corners of a sail.^[4]
• 1834 – the cords by which a hammock is hung.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (nautical) Either lower corner of a square sail, or the rear lower corner of a fore-and-aft sail.^[13][3][4]
2. (usually plural) The cords by which a hammock is hung.^[13][3][14]
3. (archaic) A ball of thread, yarn or cord.^[14][3][13]
4. (archaic) A thread that guides a person through a labyrinth; hence, a variant spelling of clue.^[15][14][13]
5. (obsolete, Old English–1796) A globular body; a ball.^[4][7]

Verb

1. To roll or wind into a ball.^[3][13][4]
2. (nautical) clew up: to haul the clews of a sail up to the yard or mast before furling it: The crew clewed up the topsail as the squall came on.^[3][14][4]
3. (nautical) clew down: to let a sail down by its clews.^[3][14]

Related words

• clue
• claw
• cloud
• clod
• clot

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
13. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b c d e Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers