▪ I. crew, n.1
(kruː)
Forms: 5–7 crue, 5–6 crewe, 6– crew.
[a. OF. creue increase, augmentation, reinforcement, n. fem. f. pa. pple. of croistre to grow, increase, etc.; perh. in part aphetic form of acrewe, accrue, which easily became a crue.
Documentary evidence for acrewe (in Eng.) is not known of so early a date as that for crewe. In the general sense, both words go back to an early date in OF.; but in the special sense ‘military reinforcement’ Godefroy's examples of creue, acreue are only of 1554–8.]
I. † 1. An augmentation or reinforcement of a military force; hence, a body of soldiers organized for a particular purpose, as to garrison a fortress, for an expedition, campaign, etc.; a band or company of soldiers. Obs.
| 1455 Rolls of Parl. 34 Hen. VI, c. 46 The wages of ccc men ordeigned to be with him for a Crue over the ordinary charge abovesaid. 1494 Fabyan Chron. vii. 444 The Frensh kynge sent soone after into Scotlande a crewe of Frenshe⁓men, to ayde suche enemyes as Kyng Edwarde there had. 1548 Hall Chron. 175 b, Sir Simon Mondford with a great crew, was appoynted to keep the dounes and the five Portes. 1550 Acts Privy Council E. (1891) III. 5 It was thought necessarie to encrease the crewe of Berwicke with a more nombre of men. 1577–87 Holinshed Chron. III. 808/2 To be generall of the crue..sent into Spaine. |
2. By extension: Any organized or associated force, band, or body of armed men.
| 1570 Levins Manip. 94 A crewe, caterua. 1575 Churchyard Chippes (1817) 134 To foster and nourishe this crue of men in the marshall arte and rules of warre. 1608 Shakes. Per. v. i. 176 A crew of pirates came and rescued me. 1667 Milton P.L. xii. 38 A crew, whom like Ambition joyns With him or under him to tyrannize. 1786 Gilpin Mts. & Lakes Cumbld. (1788) II. 128 Those crews of outlawed banditti, who under the denomination of Moss-troopers, plundered the country. 1866 Kingsley Herew. i. (1875) 25 He had fallen in with Hereward and his crew of house⁓carls. |
3. a. A number of persons gathered together in association; a company.
| 1579 Lyly Euphues (Arb.) 51 Don Ferardo one of the chiefe gouernours of the citie..had a courtly crew of gentlewomen soiourning in his pallaice. 1590 Spenser F.Q. i. iv. 7 There a noble crew Of lords and ladies stood on every side. 1632 Milton L'Allegro 38 Mirth, admit me of thy crew. 1641 Brome (title), A Joviall Crew, or the Merry Beggars. 1732 T. Lediard Sethos II. vii. 104 About break of day..this monstrous tatter'd crew entered the city. 1832 W. Irving Alhambra I. 188 As gaunt and ragged as a crew of gypsies. |
b. transf. An assemblage of animals or things.
| 1607 Rowlands Dr. Merrie-man (1609) 15 A Crew of Foxes, all on theeuing set, Togeather at a Countrie Hen-roost met. 1674 N. Fairfax Bulk & Selv. To Rdr., The same bodies crew of atoms. 1704 Swift Batt. Bks. (1711) 246 Excrescencies in form of Teats, at which a Crew of ugly Monsters were greedily sucking. 1877 N.W. Linc. Gloss., Crew, a confused crowd. It may be applied to lifeless things as well as living. ‘You nivver seed such a crew o' plough-jags as we hed to-year’. |
4. A number of persons classed together (by the speaker) from actual connexion or common characteristics; often with derogatory qualification or connotation; lot, set, gang, mob, herd.
| 1570 B. Googe Pop. Kingd. iii. 281 The supper serueth for desertes, with papistes euery where..And is not this a goodly crewe? 1581 Mulcaster Positions v. (1887) 35 A crew of excellent painters. 1593 Shakes. 2 Hen. VI, ii. ii. 72 Winke at the Duke of Suffolkes insolence, At Beaufords Pride, at Somersets Ambition, At Buckingham, and all the Crew of them. 1628 Prynne Loue-lockes 27 They would be singular and different from the vulger Crue. 1778 Foote Trip Calais ii. Wks. 1799 II. 358 Lady Kitty..You want some tale to run tattling with to the rest of the crew. Hetty. Crew? I don't understand what your Ladyship means by the crew; tho' we are servants, we may be as good Christians as other people, I hope. 1884 W. C. Smith Kildrostan 80 All the ravenous crew Of jobbers and promoters. |
II. Specific or technical uses, from 2.
5. a. A body or squad of workmen engaged upon a particular piece of work, or under one foreman or overseer; a gang.
In U.S. and Canada esp. one of the companies or gangs of men engaged together in lumber-cutting, in working a railway train, etc.
| 1699 W. Dampier Voy. II. ii. 88, I was yet a Stranger to this work, therefore remained with 3 of the old Crew to cut more Logwood. 1701 Aberdeen Burgh Rec. 21 Apr., Divisions into crews for carying sting burdens. 1808 Forsyth Beauties Scotl. V. 434 Every four men, which is called a crew, are said to quarry one hundred and four thousand slates in a year. 1860 Harper's Mag. XX. 444 A crew consists of from twenty to thirty men in charge of the ‘Boss’, of whom two are experienced choppers, two barkers and sled-tenders, etc. 1878 Lumberman's Gaz. 9 Feb., Logging crews are coming out of the woods there. |
b. A team of people concerned with the technical aspects of film-making, recording, etc., for a particular production; freq. with narrower description of function, as camera crew (camera 3 d), sound crew (sound n.3 8 b), etc.
| 1954 [see cue card s.v. cue n.2 5]. 1962 Movie Nov. 28/1 With a good crew, I can work much faster outside than I ever could in the studio. 1976 National Observer (U.S.) 8 May 22/4 I had never worked with a crew before—just friends. And here were 40 or 50 people, actors and crew, suddenly looking to me to tell them what to do. 1982 A. Road Dr. Who 22/1 In the foyer members of the crew are gathering. |
6. a. Naut. A gang of men on a ship of war, placed under the direction of a petty officer, or told off for some particular duty, as manning a boat, etc.
| 1692 Order in J. Love Mariner's Jewel (1724) 120 Quarter-Gunner, Carpenter's Crew, Steward, Cook. a 1700 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Crew, the Coxon and Rowers in the Barge or Pinnace, are called the Boats-crew, in distinction from the Complement of Men on Board the Ship, who are term'd the Ships-Company, not Crew. 1712 W. Rogers Voy. 7 Henry Oliphant, Gunner, with eight Men call'd the Gunners Crew. 1726 G. Shelvocke Voy. round World (1757) 18 To order the cooper and his crew to trim the casks. 1836 Marryat Midsh. Easy xxv, Among the boat's crew taken with him by Captain Wilson. 1868 Smyth Sailor's Word-bk. 222 There are in ships of war several particular crews or gangs, as the gunner's, carpenter's, sailmaker's, blacksmith's, armourer's, and cooper's crews. |
b. Naut. The whole of the men belonging to and manning a ship, boat, or other vessel afloat. (Now the leading sense.)
In a general sense the ship's crew includes all under the captain, but in a more restricted sense it is applied to the men only, to the exclusion of the officers.
| 1694 Smith & Walford Acc. Sev. Late Voy. ii. (1711) 170 Whoever of a Ships Crew sees a dead Whale, cries out Fish mine. 1699 W. Dampier Voy. II. ii. 86 Supposing the Captain and Crew would soon be with him. 1726 Adv. Capt. R. Boyle 176, I did not know how to dispose of the Ship and the rest of the Crew. 1796 H. Hunter tr. St. Pierre's Stud. Nat. (1799) I. p. liv, The corrupted air..carries off the seamen of our trading vessels by whole crews at once. 1817 W. Selwyn Law Nisi Prius (ed. 4) II. 904 Whether the ship was thus destroyed..by the captain and crew. 1847 Grote Greece i. xl. (1862) III. 447 The Egyptians..had captured five Grecian ships with their entire crews. 1893 Whitaker's Almanac 617 The stroke oar in the Oxford crew..Both crews came to Putney on the same day. |
c. Aeronaut. In full air crew (see air n.1 III. 4). The persons manning an aircraft or spacecraft.
| 1917 ‘Contact’ Airman's Outings 79 But the airman has experience of what the aeroplane crews must be going through, and his thought is all for them. 1960 Aeroplane XCVIII. 422/1 The crew chief, in fact, is the sixth member of the V-bomber flight crew, and is taken on all sorties which entail landing away from base. 1969 Listener 1 May 605/2 Eugene Cernan, one of the three-man crew of Apollo 10, due to be launched on 18 May. |
7. crew (hair-)cut orig. U.S., a closely cropped style of hair-cut for men (app. first adopted by boat crews at Harvard and Yale Universities); also transf. and fig.; also crew-cropped adj.; crew neck, neckline orig. U.S., a round neckline of a garment, esp. a sweater, fitting closely to the throat as on vests worn by oarsmen; so crew-necked, crew-shaped adjs.
| 1938 Hemingway Fifth Column (1939) 111 Wilson noted his crew-cropped hair. 1942 R. King Design in Evil iv. 41 A steward..with a sparkling crew cut of chestnut hair. 1944 D. W. Brogan Amer. Problem iv. 69 Crew-cut hair and brogues. a 1953 Dylan Thomas Quite Early One Morning (1954) 68 He is vigorously welcomed at the station by an earnest crew-cut platoon of giant collegiates. 1958 Times 20 Jan. 11/3 The mature version of the intellectual crew⁓cut is, with sad inevitability, the egg-head. 1962 Listener 18 Jan. 138/2 These new works sometimes convey nautical accents through the use of ship-shape and Bristol-fashioned wood, planed and crew-cut wood surfaces. |
| 1940 Time 11 Nov. 76/2 Doe-eyed Lucille Ball..gets the affections of Richard Carlson, whose crew haircut makes him the first genuine-looking Princeton undergraduate in cinema history. 1946 ‘P. Quentin’ Puzzle for Fiends x. 98 A young man with a blond crew haircut. |
| 1940 Illustr. London News CXCVII. 385 (Advt.), The windcheater..famous wind-resisting-pullover of close-textured cotton with fleecy inner surface. Crew neck. 1944 U. Sinclair Presidential Agent (1945) ii. 36 The President was lying in bed, wearing pyjamas..covered by a knitted blue sweater, crew-neck style. 1957 J. Braine Room at Top vi. 51 A yellow crew-neck sweater and a golf jacket. |
| 1950 Here & Now (N.Z.) Dec. 25/1 The war was fought for the right of every man to wear crew-necked jerseys and every woman to wear black-lace panties. |
| 1939 M. B. Picken Lang. Fashion 39/2 Crew neckline, round, high neckline, as in a sweater. |
| 1935 Amer. Speech X. 193/1 Young girls went nautical last fall in dresses that were ‘deeply pleated fore and aft’. The necks were crew shaped and the pockets were anchored. |
▸ orig. U.S. In the hip-hop subculture: a group of rappers, breakdancers, graffiti artists, etc., working or performing together. In later use also: a person's friends, associates, or entourage.
| 1979 S. Robinson et al. Rapper's Delight (song) in L. A. Stanley Rap: the Lyrics (1992) 323 The group ya hear is called Phase Two And let me tell ya somethin', we're a helluva crew Once a week, we're on the street Just to cut in the jams and look at your feet. 1985 Chicago Tribune 7 July iii. 5/1 Between 30 and 50 graffiti crews now roam the streets and tunnels in the Chicago area. 1989 USA Weekend 26 Mar. 24, I was a deejay for one crew, he was rapping with another. 1999 Unity Nov.–Dec. 11/1 As you can tell I have a major problem with townies as they give so much trouble to me and my crew just because we skate. 2001 Rolling Stone (Electronic ed.) 15 Feb. 44 Jennifer Lopez and her crew plow through the crowd, escorted by a man in a suit to a private room. 2003 National Post (Toronto) May 20 al2/3 ‘I've never seen so many b-boys and b-girls in music videos,’ says..a member of shebang!, a local four-member breaking crew. |
▪ II. crew, n.2 dial.
(kruː)
Also creuh, crow, crough, crue.
[app. of British origin: cf. earlier Welsh creu, crau, whence the singulative mod.W. crewyn, crowyn pen, sty, hovel, Cornish crow sty, hovel, hut, crow moh pig-sty, now in Cornwall a ‘pig's crow’, Breton kraou stable, stall, sheep-cote; Irish cró pen, hut, hovel; cf. croo.]
1. A pen, cote, or fold for animals, as pigs, sheep, fowls.
| 1669–81 Worlidge Dict. Rust., Swyn-hull, or Swine-crue, a hog sty. 1863 Morton Cycl. Agric. Gloss., Pig's-crough (Cornw.), pig-stye. 1878 Cumbrld. Gloss., Swine creuh, a pig-sty; a dirty hull or house. ‘Her house is na better ner a swine creuh’. 1879 Shropshire Word-bk., Crew, a pen for ducks and geese. [So in Cheshire and Sheffield Gloss.] |
b. Hence crew-yard, a close or yard with sheds for cattle.
| 1778 T. Bateman Agistm. Tithe (ed. 2) 61 Confined to the House, or in a crew-yard. 1867 Stamford Mercury 20 Sept. (in N.W. Linc. Gloss.), With hay and straw, and use of crews and sheds..with the use of the crew-yards until the 5th of April next. 1881 Gainsburgh Times 21 Jan., The crew-yard will soon be required. |
2. (In Cornwall crow.) A hut, a cabin.
| 1880 W. Cornwall Gloss., Crow, (as in crowd), a hut; a small house. |
▪ III. crew, v.
(kruː)
[f. crew n.1]
trans. and intr. To act as (a member of a) crew of a ship, aircraft, etc.; to assign to a crew. Hence crewing vbl. n., the work of such a crew, or of one of its members.
| 1935 ‘A. Andrews’ Blue Tunnyman vi. 93 Of the many racing men for whom I crewed, no one taught me more than Mr. J. Paine..in a converted Bristol pilot cutter. 1944 ‘N. Shute’ Pastoral v. 107 Bad luck on the chaps that had to crew for him. 1947 Daily Tel. 7 May 5/1 He criticises the crewing of the aircraft... Air Cmdre. Brown attributes the accident to..bad crewing, the navigator being the only one of the four operational members who knew the route. 1955 Times 13 June 12/2 The Swallow class boat Blue Phantom, crewed by the Glanville twin brothers. Ibid. 16 June 8/2 Arrangements had been made for the crewing of the ship to ensure this. 1957 Rawnsley & Wright Night Fighter i. 19 When it came to my turn to be crewed up it was..no surprise to me to learn that I had been allocated to the youngest pilot in the squadron. 1967 Jane's Surface Skimmer Systems 1967–68 30/1 It..can be crewed by personnel experienced in the operation of these craft. |
▪ IV. crew
pa. tense of crow v.1