CLUE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Clue

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noun

Clue, Clew n.

A ball of thread, yarn, or cord; also, The thread itself. "Untwisting his deceitful clew."

That which guides or directs one in anything of a doubtful or intricate nature; that which gives a hint in the solution of a mystery. "The clew, without which it was perilous to enter the vast and intricate maze of countinental politics, was in his hands."

(Naut.)

(a)

A lower corner of a square sail, or the after corner of a fore-and-aft sail.

(b)

A loop and thimbles at the corner of a sail.

(c)

A combination of lines or nettles by which a hammock is suspended.

Clew garnet (Naut.), one of the ropes by which the clews of the courses of square-rigged vessels are drawn up to the lower yards.

Clew line (Naut.), a rope by which a clew of one of the smaller square sails, as topsail, topgallant sail, or royal, is run up to its yard.

Clew-line block (Naut.), The block through which a clew line reeves.

Clue n. A ball of thread; a thread or other means of guidance. Same as Clew. "You have wound a goodly clue." "This clue once found unravels all the rest." "Serve as clues to guide us into further knowledge."

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Etymology of 'Clue'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Clue" Quotes from Famous Books

... No definite clue, however, could be obtained to the perpetrators of the kidnaping scheme, although both sufferers from it had put private detectives at work upon the affair. But, like many startling public events, the midnight ride of the two candidates was a "nine days' wonder" and then the public ...

— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow

... as it stands, there are really very few. I am confident that the chairman must be quite alone in too modestly applying to his great work that description of London itself, with which the paper (Section A, pp. 104-107) opens, since his volumes offer really our first effective clue to the labyrinth, and his method of intensive and specialised regional survey, the intensest searchlight yet brought to bear ...

— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes

... sobering he has grown exalted. A man might almost say," mused my father, "that the imp in him had shed itself off and taken flesh in that Master Fett I left snoring with his head on my dining-table. An earthy spirit, that Master Fett; earthy and yet somewhat inhuman. Your Nat Fiennes has the clue of life—if only Atropos do not ...

— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... are you crazed? You cannot go! The woods are full of creatures wild and fierce, And wolves prowl round about. No path is blazed, No underbrush is cleared, no clue exists Of any kind to guide your feet. A man Could scarce get through, how then ...

— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon

... of Pavlicheff? And who may this son of Pavlicheff be?" asked General Epanchin with surprise; and looking curiously around him, he discovered that he alone had no clue to the mystery. Expectation and suspense were on every face, with the exception of that of the prince, who stood gravely wondering how an affair so entirely personal could have awakened such lively and widespread interest in so short ...

— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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