Word.ws English Dictionary

clewless

/ˈkluːləs/

clewless adjective: without a clew (thread to guide one's way through a maze).

Adjective

clewless (comparative more clewless, superlative most clewless)

  1. Without a clew (thread to guide one's way through a maze)
    • And now the muse (with courage not her own, / But that which heav'n protects with Freedom's, throne) / Has dar'd a clew-less passage to explore[…].1772, Thomas Hallie Delamayne, The Senators, page 40
  2. Clueless.
    • A young person of the unfair sex addicted to clewless conduct and views that madden to crime.1911, Ambrose Bierce, “maiden”, in The Devil’s Dictionary, New York, N.Y.; Washington, D.C.: The Neale Publishing Company, →OCLC

Adverb

clewless (comparative more clewless, superlative most clewless)

  1. Without a clew (thread to guide one's way through a maze)
    • He wandered clewless in a maze of mystery.2007, Julian Hawthorne, Idolatry, →ISBN, page 209

Forms of clewless

Adjective
comparativemore clewless
superlativemost clewless
Adverb
comparativemore clewless
superlativemost clewless

Origin of clewless

From clew + -less.

Questions about clewless

What does clewless mean?
Clewless means without a clew (thread to guide one's way through a maze).
What part of speech is clewless?
Clewless can be an adjective or an adverb.
How do you pronounce clewless?
Clewless is pronounced /ˈkluːləs/.

Words near clewless in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: clewless (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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