crew

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Contents

English [edit]

Pronunciation [edit]

Etymology 1 [edit]

from Middle English, from Old French creue (“an increase, recruit, military reinforcement”), the feminine past participle of creistre (“grow”), from Latin crescere (“to arise, grow”)

Noun [edit]

crew (plural crews)

  1. A group of people (often staff) manning and operating a large facility or piece of equipment such as a factory, ship, boat, or airplane
    If you need help, please contact a member of the crew.
    The crews of the two ships got into a fight.
  2. (plural: crew) A member of the crew of a vessel or plant
    One crew died in the accident.
  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.
  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. (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.
  6. A group of people working together on a task
    The crews competed to cut the most timber.
  7. (informal, often derogatory) A close group of friends
    I'd look out for that whole crew down at Jack's.
  8. (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 themselves the traitor crew,
      But his soul is marching on.
    • 1950, Bernard Nicholas Schilling, Conservative England and the Case Against Voltaire[1], page 266:
      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.
  9. (slang, hip-hop) A hip-hop group
    • 2003, Jennifer Guglielmo & Salvatore Salerno, Are Italians White?[2], ISBN 0415934508, page 150:
      We decided we needed another rapper in the crew and spent months looking.
  10. (sports, rowing, uncountable) The sport of competitive rowing.
    • 1989, Benjamin Spock & Mary Morgan, Spock on Spock[3], ISBN 0394578139, page 71:
      Two Andover classmates, Al Wilson and Al Lindley, both went out for crew in our freshman year at Yale.
  11. (rowing) A rowing team manning a single shell.
    • 1888, W.B. Woodgate, Boating[4], page 71:
      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.

  • Crew of a spaceship

  • Crew of a rowing shell

  • Crew working on a race car

  • A hip-hop crew

Synonyms [edit]
Derived terms [edit]
Translations [edit]
group of people operating a large facility or piece of equipment
non-officer nautical personnel
group of people working on common task
non-actor members of a theatrical stage production
member of a crew
informal: social group, gang
group lumped together by speaker
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb [edit]

crew (third-person singular simple present crews, present participle crewing, simple past and past participle crewed)

  1. (transitive and intransitive) 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.
  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
    • 2003, Kirk C. Jenkins, The Battle Rages Higher[5], ISBN 0813122813, page 42:
      Steele crewed the boat with men from his own regiment and volunteers from John Wood's detachment.
  4. (nautical) To do the proper work of a sailor
    The crewing of the vessel before the crash was deficient.
  5. (nautical) To take on, recruit (new) crew
    • 1967 January, “Tampa”, page 30:
      The two ships will be crewing in the latter half of September.
Derived terms [edit]
Translations [edit]
To be a member of a crew
To supply workers or sailors for a crew
To take a crew

Etymology 2 [edit]

Verb [edit]

crew

  1. (UK) simple past tense and past participle of crow To have made the characteristic sound of a rooster.
    It was still dark when the cock crew.

Etymology 3 [edit]

Probably of Brythonic origin.

Noun [edit]

crew (plural crews)

  1. (UK, dialectal) A pen for livestock such as chickens or pigs
    • 2004, Gillian Cross, On the Edge[6], ISBN 0192753711, page 7:
      Between the shippon and the pig-crew, with the wind blowing over from the vegetable ground.

See also [edit]

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