View source for Crew - crow

The words '''crew''' and '''crow''' both exist as [[verb]]s and [[noun]]s. In both cases the two were not connected - though one [[verb]]al use of '''crew''' is as an older form of the [[past tense]] of '''to crow'''. In all senses, '''crow''' is pronounced to rhyme with 'show' and 'go'.
*'A '''crow'''<nowiki>'</nowiki> ([[noun]]) is a large black bird, belonging to one of many species in the ''corvus'' genus. It has a characteristic 'caw'ing cry. It is a well-known scavenger. Other , less common, '''crow'''s include:
**the '''Crow''' people, a tribe of native North Americans, historically living in the Yellowstone River area, who now have a reservation - also in Montana.
**The sound denoted by the [[verb]] - sometimes in phrases like '''cock-crow''', meaning 'dawn'; sometimes in the [[figurative]] sense, 'a cry of triumph, or victory'.
**In [[Early Modern English]], a '''crowbar''' was usually called, simply, a '''crow'''.
*A '''crew''' is a team, particularly the whole number of people required to staff a boat or ship ("Now the leading sense.", ''[[OED]]''). But it is also used for other teams, sometimes inside the crew of a ship, as in the '''gun-crew''' that serves a particular heavy weapon, or a '''camera crew''' within a '''film crew''' (the technical team involved in making a film, or 'movie'). The common phrase 'a motley crew', means 'a group of very mixed, probably disreputable, people' - see [[motley]]. '''Aircrew''' are members of the team aboard a given aircraft, or, collectively, the flying members of an organization like a squadron, as opposed to the '''groundcrew''' - the services usually distinguish between 'pilots' and 'aircrew' - the former being the commanders, the latter the subordinates. This gives rise to the [[verb]]
**'to '''crew'''<nowiki>'</nowiki>: 'to act as, or to form part of, a crew', particularly to act as a subordinate in a small number of people staffing a racing yacht or dinghy. It is also used of aeroplanes, again with the [[connotation]] of 'being a person other than the commander'.
*'To '''crow'''<nowiki>'</nowiki>, meaning 'to make the typical call of a domestic [[cock (noun)|cock]]', can be adapted for other bird calls. It is often used, as in phrases such as 'at first cock' -  to indicate break of day - the time when cocks greet the light with a loud 'cock-a-doodle-doo'. [[Figurative]]ly, it is used as a [[metaphor]] drawn from another common use by the bird - as a sign of claiming territory by defeating an opponent. Thus the winner of any conflict who boasts about it is said 'to crow '''over'''' the defeated.
**<nowiki>'</nowiki>To '''crow'''<nowiki>'</nowiki>  is an irregular verb, though not listed as such in [[Quirk]]. Its forms are given here:


{|border="1"
|-
!width="100"| [[Base form]] 
!width="150"| [[past tense]]
!width="150"| [[-ed participle]] 
!width="510"| Remarks
|-
| crow|| crew ''or''<br> crowed|| crowed <br>''rarely'' crawn||'''Crew''' was the usual form of the [[past tense]] in [[Early Modern English]], as in [[AV]], where Peter's betrayal of Jesus is told as: "And the second time the cock '''crew'''. And Peter called to mind the word that Jesus said unto him, Before the cock '''crow''' twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. And when he thought thereon, he wept" (Mark, 14: 72).
|-}



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[[category:archaic English]]
[[category:clarification of meanings]]
[[category:Irregular verbs]]
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