Naut. [f. CLEW sb. + GARNET.] A tackle to ‘clew up’ the ‘courses’ or lower square-sails in furling; cf. CLEW-LINE.
α. 1626. Capt. Smith, Accid. Yng. Sea-men, 15. Clew [printed Clow] garnits, tyes, martlits. Ibid. (1627), Seaman’s Gram., 22. The Clew garnet is a rope made fast to the clew of the saile, and from thence runnes in a blocke seased to the middle of the yard, which in furling doth hale vp the clew of the saile close to the middle of the yard.
1749. Chalmers, in Phil. Trans., XLVI. 366. We … had our Fore and Main Clew-Garnets manned to haul up our Courses.
1884. Daily News, 7 Oct., 2/5. He went to his station on the clewgarnet.
β. 1762. Falconer, Shipwr., II. 165. Mann the clue-garnetts, let the main-sheet fly.
1825. H. Gascoigne, Nav. Fame, 49. The weighty Courses from their arms they cast, Cluegarnets, Buntlines, for the present fast.
