GRAPH-WIDE SEARCH
MEASURE THE GRAPH ↗NOT JUST A DICTIONARY LOOKUP
6 EVIDENCE COLLECTIONSSEARCH
THE GRAPH.
Find a modern word—or search sideways through reconstructed roots, historical forms, meanings, languages, scholars, sources, claims, disputes, and witnesses.
013
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
noun · verbexact headword
clue
A fact that guides discovery—once literally a ball of thread.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noun · verbcontrarian claim
clew
A ball of thread, a nautical corner or line, and the older spelling behind clue.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
intelligence
Capacity for understanding, information, or the organizations that gather it; inherited through French from Latin intelligentia.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗022
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
034
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 2
resolvedestablishedexact word
Is clue borrowed from Greek?
No. Greek myth influenced the English word’s meaning; the word itself is inherited from Old English.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Was a clew originally evidence?
No. The oldest reviewed sense is a ball of thread. The guiding and evidence senses develop from stories in which a thread leads someone through a difficult place.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 2
RANK 6GRADE Aexact ranked word
Evidence became a thread you could follow.
Old English cliewen was a ball of thread; the labyrinth metaphor turned it into guidance through uncertainty.
RANK 188GRADE Acontrarian claim
A clue was a ball of thread.
The literal clew could guide someone through a maze; only later did clue become the dominant spelling for evidence that guides reasoning.
042
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
051
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
06
SEARCH IS DISCOVERY, NOT PROOF
EVERY RESULT OPENS A PERMANENT EVIDENCE RECORD.
Matching text only locates a record. It does not raise confidence, settle a dispute, establish cognacy, or turn a source report into direct inspection. Follow the result into its citations and editorial limits.