Clutch

1. n. The nest complement of eggs of a bird.
2. n. A gripe or clinching with, or as with, the fingers or claws; seizure; grasp.
3. n. The hands, claws, or talons, in the act of grasping firmly; — often figuratively, for power, rapacity, or cruelty; as, to fall into the clutches of an adversary.
4. n. A device which is used for coupling shafting, etc., so as to transmit motion, and which may be disengaged at pleasure.
5. n. Any device for gripping an object, as at the end of a chain or tackle.

The word meanings were obtained from OPTED(The Online Plain Text English Dictionary), which is based on “The Project Gutenberg Etext of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary” which is in turn based on the 1913 US Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (See Project Gutenburg), as a text file.