Word.ws English Dictionary

clewing up

clewing up is the present participle and gerund of clew up.

Meaning of clew up

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

Questions about clewing up

What is clewing up the present participle and gerund of?
Clewing up is the present participle and gerund of clew up.

Words near clewing up in the dictionary

  1. Clewell
  2. Clewells
  3. Clewer
  4. clewing
  5. clewing down
  6. clewing up
  7. Clewiston
  8. clewkin
  9. clewless
  10. clewline
  11. clewlines

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: clewing up (page history and authors); 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.

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