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START / NODE 393Present-Day Englishbefore the 12th century–today
clew
A ball of thread, a nautical corner or line, and the older spelling behind clue.
“The clue was first a clew: a literal ball of thread that could guide someone through a maze. The evidence sense came later; the nautical word kept the old spelling.”OPEN COMPLETE WORD DOSSIER ↗
EVERY REVIEWED PARENT, NOT ONE EDITORIAL PATH
FOLLOW EVERY BRANCH.
Compound components and competing routes stay separate. Every arrow retains its sound change, semantic change, scholar, confidence, and exact sources.
00Present-Day English · attestedclew
a ball of thread; a guiding clue; a nautical corner, loop, or line
01
PARENT ROUTES1 REVIEWED RELATIONSHIP
Present-Day Englishclew
a ball of thread; a guiding clue; a nautical corner, loop, or line
↑GO DEEPER
Middle English · c. 1300–1600sclewa ball of thread or yarn
- SOUND CHANGE
- Middle English clew / clewe survives as Modern English clew with loss of inflection and stabilized spelling.
- SEMANTIC CHANGE
- The literal thread-ball sense survives; nautical senses develop from the corner or fastening of a sail and the guiding spelling clue diverges later.
- SCHOLAR
- Merriam-Webster · American Heritage editors
- CONFIDENCE
- established
- CHRONOLOGY
- The modern spelling overlaps chronologically with the historical evidence sense.
2 CITATIONSClew — Definition, Word History, and First Known UseDefinitions; Did You Know?; Word History: Etymology American Heritage Dictionary: clewHeadword clew; etymology AUDIT CANONICAL EDGE 364 ↗
Documents the surviving literal and nautical senses and the Middle English to Old English line.
ORIGINAL ↗Independently publishes the Middle English and Old English ancestry.
ORIGINAL ↗THE ASTERISK IS A PROMISE
RECONSTRUCTION IS
NOT INSCRIPTION.
Crossing into a starred form changes the evidence class. The interface marks that crossing, preserves confidence, and never manufactures the next root to make the picture look complete.