Crew Meaning
/kɹuː/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA group of people together
nounA group of people together, Any company of people; an assemblage; a throng.
Sentence Examples
A student with a crew cut was sitting in the front seat.
Mark was a work horse on his construction crew.
The boat crew prepared the vessel for the long voyage.
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CEFR Practice Quiz
The ship's ____ worked together to hoist the sails under the captain's orders.
Word Origin & History
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”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
"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 some strange exceptional process of decay."
— 1905, H. G. Wells, The Empire of the Ants:
"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 the coast to Crianlarich and swap over. There's a tiny rest room on the platform, with a microwave and a sink, while they wait. Some drivers are signed all the way to the city. Most are not."
— 2023 November 29, Paul Clifton, “West is best in the Highlands”, in RAIL, number 997, pages 37-38:
"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 Against Voltaire, page 266:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
The ship's ____ worked together to hoist the sails under the captain's orders.