PERMANENT SOURCE RECORD
ALL SOURCES ↗BIBLIOGRAPHIC IDENTITYmw-clue
SOURCE
RECORD.
One work. Every claim that depends on it. No citation without a consequence you can inspect.
3 PUBLIC LINKS INTO THE GRAPH.
This count excludes duplicate dossier-path citations. Open the claims below to see exactly how the source is used.
historical dictionarymw-clue
Clue — Word History
- AUTHOR / EDITOR
- Merriam-Webster Editors
- YEAR
- 2026
- PUBLISHER
- Merriam-Webster
- DOI
- Not recorded
- SOURCE TYPE
- historical dictionary
- EXTERNAL RECORD
- OPEN ORIGINAL ↗
011
CONTRARIAN TRUTH CLAIMS
RANKED REVEALS THAT CITE THIS SOURCE
RANK 06GRADE Asupports
Evidence became a thread you could follow.
Old English cliewen was a ball of thread; the labyrinth metaphor turned it into guidance through uncertainty.
cliewen
cliewen → clew “ball of thread” → guiding thread → clue “evidence”
Word HistoryDocuments the literal ball-of-thread ancestry of clue.
clue dossier ↗truth record ↗95UNVEILING
020
SCHOLARLY DISAGREEMENT
DISPUTE POSITIONS THAT CITE THIS SOURCE
No scholarly dispute currently cites this source.
031
CANONICAL RELATIONSHIP CLAIMS
EDGES THAT CITE THIS SOURCE
EDGE 21supportsestablished
clue → clew
Present-Day English → Middle English · semantic specialization
- SOUND
- The spelling clue became standard for the figurative sense while clew remained literal.
- MEANING
- A guiding thread became a fact that guides reasoning.
- SCHOLAR / EDITOR
- OED editors
Word History040
LEXICAL ATTESTATIONS
WITNESSES REPORTED BY THIS SOURCE
No lexical witness currently cites this source.
050
COMPARATIVE EVIDENCE
COGNATES, DESCENDANTS, AND RELATIVES
No comparative-relative record currently cites this source.
061
GEOGRAPHIC AND TEMPORAL CLAIMS
JOURNEY STAGES THAT CITE THIS SOURCE
stage 3supports
Modern English
Defines the modern evidence-and-guidance sense, explains its development from clew and the labyrinth motif, and reports the noun from circa 1665.
Definition sense 1; Did You Know?; Word History · global070
NON-GENEALOGICAL CONNECTIONS
HISTORICAL CONTEXT, KEPT SEPARATE
No non-genealogical context link currently cites this source.
081
WORD-FAMILY REUSE
DOSSIERS THAT DEPEND ON THIS SOURCE
1 entry-scoped citations map reviewed dossier paths onto the canonical claims above.