clutches

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
clutch1

▶verb grasp tightly.

■ (clutch at) seize eagerly or in desperation: he clutched at the idea.

▶noun

• 1 a tight grasp.

• 2 (clutches) power or control: she was about to fall into his clutches.

• 3 a mechanism for connecting and disconnecting the engine and the transmission system in a vehicle, or the working parts of any machine.

• 4 N. Amer. a clutch bag.

– origin ME (in the sense ‘bend, crook’): var. of obs. clitch ‘close the hand’, from OE clyccan ‘crook, clench’, of Gmc origin.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
clutch2

▶noun

• 1 a group of eggs fertilized at the same time, laid in a single session and (in birds) incubated together.

  ■ a brood of chicks.

• 2 a small group of people or things.

– origin C18: prob. a southern var. of northern English dial. cletch, rel. to ME cleck ‘to hatch’, from ON klekja.