crews

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of crew.

   Repair crews fanned out across the county to restore power lines.

   Both rowing crews trained on the river at dawn.

   Note

   This plural counts teams rather than people. A single crew is already many hands, so two crews means two working groups, each with its own members: repair crews on the roads, rowing crews on the river, production crews behind a cast. The informal, often scornful sense of a close circle of friends forms its plural the same way. The old sense of any throng of people is obsolete.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of crew.

   My brother crews aboard a research vessel in the North Atlantic.

   She regularly crews on the harbor ferry during the busy season.

   Note

   The working verb in its he-and-she form runs two ways. It can be intransitive, as in she crews on the ferry, or transitive with the vessel as object, as in he crews a yacht. It can also mean supplying or recruiting a crew. The archaic British crew that served as the past of crow never takes this -s. Only the sailor's verb does.

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