Clutching

How to spell clutching

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce clutching

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does clutching mean?

1. verbGrasping or holding something tightly with the hands.

Clutching in a sentence

• She ran for the train while clutching her handbag against her chest.

• The toddler was clutching a worn blanket as he fell asleep.

Where does clutching come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base verb 'clutch' descends from the Old English clyccan, which meant to clench or to bring the fingers together into a tight grip. It belongs to a family of Germanic words for grasping, and in Middle English it was sometimes spelled 'clucchen' before settling on the modern form with -tch. Over the centuries the sense broadened from the literal action of seizing something with the hand to figurative ideas of holding on desperately, as in clutching at hope. The mechanical 'clutch' in a car, the device that engages and disengages the engine, comes from this same gripping sense and arrived in the nineteenth century. The present participle 'clutching' simply adds the -ing ending, and the spelling trap for adults is remembering the silent t in the -tch cluster.

How the word is built

• clutch (to grasp tightly, from Old English clyccan)
• -ing (present participle suffix)