Clutch Definition

klŭch
clutched, clutches, clutching
verb
clutched, clutches, clutching
To snatch or seize (at)
Webster's New World
To grasp or hold eagerly or tightly.
Webster's New World
To hatch (chicks).
American Heritage
To grasp, seize, or snatch with a hand or claw.
Webster's New World
To engage the clutch of an automobile, etc.
Webster's New World
Antonyms:
noun
clutches
A claw or hand in the act of seizing.
Webster's New World
Power; control.
Webster's New World
A grasp; grip.
Webster's New World
The act of clutching.
Webster's New World

Any device, mechanical, electromagnetic, or hydraulic, for engaging or disengaging a drive shaft.

Webster's New World
adjective
Designating or done in a critical situation.
Webster's New World
Likely to function well or be successful in such a situation.
Webster's New World
idiom
clutch
  • To search in desperation for a solution to a difficulty.
American Heritage

Other Word Forms of Clutch

Noun

Singular:
clutch
Plural:
clutches

Idioms, Phrasal Verbs Related to Clutch

Origin of Clutch

  • From Middle English clucchen, clicchen, cluchen, clechen, cleken, from Old English clyccan (“to clutch, clench”), from Proto-Germanic *klukjaną, from Proto-Germanic *klu- (“to ball up, conglomerate, amass”), from Proto-Indo-European *glew- (“to ball up; lump, mass”). Cognate with Swedish klyka (“clamp, fork, branch”). The noun is from Middle English cleche, cloche, cloke ("claw, talon, hand"; compare Scots cleuk, cluke, cluik (“claw, talon”)), of uncertain origin, with the form probably assimilated to the verb.

    From Wiktionary

  • Alternative etymology derives Old English clyccan from Proto-Germanic *klēk- (“claw, hand”), from Proto-Indo-European *glēk-, *ǵlēḱ- (“claw, hand; to clutch, snatch”). If so, then cognate with Irish glac (“hand”).

    From Wiktionary

  • Variant form of cletch, from Middle English cleken (“to hatch”), perhaps from Old Norse klekja (“to hatch”).

    From Wiktionary

  • Variant of dialectal cletch Middle English clekken to hatch from Old Norse klekja

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • Middle English clucchen from Old English clyccan

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

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