crew

To be a member of a vessel's crew.

Noun obsolete

  1. A group of people together
    • There a noble crew / Of Lordes and Ladies stood on every side. - 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 7:
    • Faithful to whom? to thy rebellious crew? - 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker,...

    1. (obsolete) Any company of people; an assemblage; a throng.

    2. A group of people (often staff) manning and operating a large facility or piece of equipment such as a factory, ship, boat, airplane, or spacecraft.

      • If you need help, please contact a member of the crew.
      • He saw now clearly that the sole crew of the vessel was these two dead men, and though he could not see their faces, he saw by their outstretched hands, which were all of ragged flesh, that they had been subjected to...
      • There's a change of driver halfway at Crianlarich. Glasgow crews bring the 35-year-old Class 156 north, then wait to take over the next train back south. Crews from Mallaig, Oban and Fort William take their trains from...

    3. A group of people working together on a task.

      • The crews competed to cut the most timber.

    4. (art) The group of workers on a dramatic production who are not part of the cast.

      • There are a lot of carpenters in the crew!
      • The crews for different movies would all come down to the bar at night.

    5. (informal, often derogatory) A close group of friends.

      • I’d look out for that whole crew down at Jack’s.

    6. (often derogatory) A set of individuals lumped together by the speaker.

      • 1861 William Weston Patton, (version of) John Brown's Body He captured Harper’s Ferry, with his nineteen men so few, And frightened "Old Virginny" till she trembled thru and thru; They hung him for a traitor, they...
      • Malignant principles bear fruit in kind and the Revolution did no more than practice what men had been taught by the abandoned crew of philosophers. - 1950, Bernard Nicholas Schilling, Conservative England and the Case...

    7. (scouting) A group of Rovers.

    8. (slang, hip-hop) A hip-hop or b-boying group.

      • And Jay cuts the records every day of the week / And we are the crew that can never be meek - 1985, “King of Rock”, performed by Run-DMC:
      • The most popular and critically acclaimed rap and deejay “crews”—Run-D.M.C., Whodini, L.L. Cool J, the Beastie Boys, the Fat Boys, Public Enemy, Full Force, Salt & Pepa, Afrika Bambaataa, Kurtis Blow, Mantronix,...
      • We decided we needed another rapper in the crew and spent months looking. - 2003, Jennifer Guglielmo, Salvatore Salerno, Are Italians White?, →ISBN, page 150:

    9. (rowing) A rowing team manning a single shell.

      • If a crew feather much under water, it is a good plan to seat them in a row on a bench, and give each man a stick to handle as an oar. - 1888, W.B. Woodgate, Boating, page 71:
  2. A person in a crew
    • One crew died in the accident.

    1. (plural: crew) A member of the crew of a vessel or plant.

    2. (art, plural: crew) A worker on a dramatic production who is not part of the cast.

      • There were three actors and six crew on the set.

    3. (nautical, plural: crew) A member of a ship's company who is not an officer.

      • The officers and crew assembled on the deck.
      • There are quarters for three officers and five crew.
  3. The sport of competitive rowing.
    • The University of Virginia belongs to the Atlantic Coast Conference and competes interscholastically in basketball, baseball, crew, cross country, fencing, football, golf, indoor track, lacrosse, polo, soccer, swimming,...
    • Two Andover classmates, Al Wilson and Al Lindley, both went out for crew in our freshman year at Yale. - 1989, Benjamin Spock, Mary Morgan, Spock on Spock, →ISBN, page 71:

Origin

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱer- Proto-Indo-European *-sḱéti Proto-Indo-European *ḱreh₁-sḱéti Latin crēscere Old French creistre Old French creuebor. Middle English crue English crew From Middle English crue, from Old French creue (“an increase, recruit, military reinforcement”), the feminine past participle of creistre (“grow”), from Latin crescere (“to arise, grow”).

Forms

crews

Synonyms

ship's company all hands complement team gang staff stagehands clique pack crowd bunch lot posse flock band group crewer member crewmember nautical only: sailor seaman

Hyponyms

cabin crew commercial crew film crew flight crew ground crew Jew crew motley crew movie crew pit crew prize crew road crew skeleton crew train crew

Derived

aircrew air crew crewable crew cab crew chief crew cut crewdate crew date crewless crewman crewmate crewneck crew neck crewperson crew resource management crew-served crew-served weapon crew sock crewwoman cybercrew groundcrew handcrew multicrew recrew

Noun East Midlands, Northern England

  1. A pen for livestock such as chickens or pigs
    • Between the shippon and the pig-crew, with the wind blowing over from the vegetable ground. - 2004, Gillian Cross, On the Edge, →ISBN, page 7:

Origin

Probably of Brythonic/Cumbric origin. Compare Middle Welsh creu (“pigsty, hovel, stockade”).

Forms

crews

Derived

crewyard

Noun dated, dialectal

  1. The Manx shearwater.

Forms

crews

Verb Entry 4

  1. To be a member of a vessel's crew.
    • We crewed together on a fishing boat last year.
    • The ship was crewed by fifty sailors.
    • On 3 Feb 1982 at Podmoscovnoe in the USSR, a Mil Mi-26 heavy-lift helicopter (NATO code-name "Halo"), crewed by G.V. Alfeurov and L.A. Indeyev (co-pilot), lifted a total mass of 6,560 ft. - 1994, Peter Matthews...
  2. To be a member of a work or production crew.
    • The film was crewed and directed by students.
  3. To supply workers or sailors for a crew.
    • The seafood companies crewed huge trawlers with new fishermen, many of whom were fish-plant workers, since much of the work on board a modern trawler is fish processing. - 1997, Mark Kurlansky, Cod, page 182:
    • Steele crewed the boat with men from his own regiment and volunteers from John Wood's detachment. - 2003, Kirk C. Jenkins, The Battle Rages Higher, →ISBN, page 42:
  4. To do the proper work of a sailor.
    • The crewing of the vessel before the crash was deficient.
  5. To take on, recruit (new) crew.
    • The two ships will be crewing in the latter half of September. - 1967 January, “Tampa”, in The Pilot, page 30:

Forms

crews crewing crewed

Derived

crewer uncrewed crew up

Verb UK, archaic

  1. simple past of crow (“make the characteristic sound of a rooster”).
    • It was still dark when the cock crew.
    • And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before The Tavern shouted — "Open then the Door! You know how little while we have to stay, And, once departed, may return no more." - 1859, Edward Fitzgerald, The Rubáiyát of Omar...

Verb Internet, form of

  1. simple past and past participle of cry
    • the cry I crew

Related

scrempt