0 past simple and past participle of clutch
1 to take or try to take hold of something tightly, usually in fear, worry, or pain:
But it clutched at their necks so hard that all the feathers were worn away.
Handfuls of grass and earth were clutched in the hands.
I clutched it and ran home with it until it nearly made a hole in the palm of my hand.
They clutched at a little more life—a £2,000,000 gulp of oxygen.
Turn to the other popular straws which have been clutched at for relieving unemployment.
I still hope that there may be a straw that can be clutched, because the majority of people wonder where this will end.
Such ideas are not clutched out of the air by those in government.
That was one of the main fig-leaves that he clutched when trying to protect his failures in teacher recruitment.
