Word.ws English Dictionary

clew up

clew up verb: to finish up or to tidy up, as in the tie up a sail on a sailing boat, the clew being a part of the structure holding the sail. Comes from the nautical term "clew".

Verb

clew up (third-person singular simple present clews up, present participle clewing up, simple past and past participle clewed up)

  1. (UK, informal) To finish up or to tidy up, as in the tie up a sail on a sailing boat, the clew being a part of the structure holding the sail. Comes from the nautical term "clew".
    Synonyms:
    finish up

Synonyms of clew up

Forms of clew up

third-person singular presentclews up
present participleclewing up
past participleclewed up
pastclewed up

Questions about clew up

What does clew up mean?
Clew up means to finish up or to tidy up, as in the tie up a sail on a sailing boat, the clew being a part of the structure holding the sail. Comes from the nautical term "clew".
What part of speech is clew up?
Clew up is a verb.
What is the past tense of clew up?
The past tense of clew up is clewed up.

Words near clew up in the dictionary

  1. clevudine
  2. clew
  3. clew down
  4. clew line
  5. clew lines
  6. clew up
  7. clew-garnet
  8. clew-garnets
  9. clewed
  10. clewed down
  11. clewed up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: clew up (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “clew up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/clew_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.