CLUE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does clue mean? 

• CLUE (noun)
  The noun CLUE has 2 senses:

1. a slight indication

2. evidence that helps to solve a problem

  Familiarity information: CLUE used as a noun is rare.

• CLUE (verb)
  The verb CLUE has 1 sense:

1. roll into a ball

  Familiarity information: CLUE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CLUE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A slight indication

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

clue; hint

Hypernyms ("clue" is a kind of...):

indicant; indication (something that serves to indicate or suggest)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Evidence that helps to solve a problem

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

clew; clue; cue

Hypernyms ("clue" is a kind of...):

evidence (an indication that makes something evident)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "clue"):

mark; sign (a perceptible indication of something not immediately apparent (as a visible clue that something has happened))

• CLUE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they clue    ... he / she / it clues   
Past simple: clued   
Past participle: clued   
-ing form: cluing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Roll into a ball

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

clew; clue

Hypernyms (to "clue" is one way to...):

roll; twine; wind; wrap (arrange or or coil around)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

 Context examples 

In that case, you’ll have to be careful not to spill clues to what it might be.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Using the clues contained within the ice cores, the researchers found that the eruption began around the spring of 939 and continued at least through the autumn of 940.

(Volcanic eruption influenced Iceland’s conversion to Christianity, University of Cambridge)

It's unclear how the first vertebrates thrived after crawling out of the sea 400 million years ago, but the lungs hold an important clue.

(Following the lizard lung labyrinth, National Science Foundation)

These results may help provide clues to the discovery that the meninges in humans may heal following mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and why additional hits to the head can be so devastating.

(Scientists watch the brain’s lining heal after a head injury, National Institutes of Health)

“After all,” said I, “the clue of the matter lies probably here in town.”

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And yet, in that bell-rope, he has given us a clue which should not have left us a doubt.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

If there were anyone that one could apply to with a probability of gaining such a clue as that, it might be of essential consequence.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Their results suggest a depletion of oxygen relative to other elements and provide chemical clues into how these exoplanets may have formed without substantial accretion of ice.

(Water common – yet scarce – in exoplanets, University of Cambridge)

New data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have provided the first clues to the chemistry of two of these super-puffy planets, which are located in the Kepler 51 system.

('Cotton Candy' Planet Mysteries Unravel in New Hubble Observations, NASA)

Guided by a slight clue, I followed the windings of the Rhone, but vainly.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)