clutch¹ / kləch/ • v. [tr.] grasp or seize (something) tightly or eagerly: he stood clutching a microphone| [intr.] fig. Mrs. Longhill clutched at the idea. • n. 1. a tight grasp or an act of grasping something. ∎  (someone's clutches) a person's power or control, esp. when perceived as cruel or inescapable: he had narrowly escaped the clutches of the Nazis.2. a slim, flat handbag without handles or a strap.3. (the clutch) an emergency or critical moment: he came through for us in the clutch | [as adj.] the best clutch hitters in baseball.4. a mechanism for connecting and disconnecting a vehicle engine from its transmission system. ∎  the pedal operating such a mechanism. ∎  an arrangement for connecting and disconnecting the working parts of any machine.PHRASES: clutch at strawssee straw.clutch² • n. a group of eggs fertilized at the same time, typically laid in a single session and (in birds) incubated together. ∎  a brood of chicks. ∎  a small group of people or things: a clutch of young girls on roller skates.

clutch 2 laying or sitting of eggs, brood of young birds. XVIII. prob. southern dial. var. of synon. north. cletch (XVII), rel. obscurely to cleck hatch (XV; chiefly Sc.) — ON. klekja; assoc. with CLUTCH 1.

Clutch

a nest of eggs or brood of young. See also brood, cletch, family.

Examples: clutch of chicken; constables [modern]; eggs, 1721; geese, 1885; partridges; squalls, 1825; tempests, 1825.

clutch 1 †crook, bend; seize with claws, seize eagerly. XIV. ME. clucche, repr. OE. clyċċan crook, clench.
Hence clutch sb. claw; grasp. XVI.

clutch All the eggs deposited during one episode of laying.