cru

The slang term 'cru' is a direct and informal shortening of the word 'crew', which entered English in the late 15th century with a nautical meaning. 'Crew' itself has a rich history of semantic growth, originating from the Latin verb 'crescere', meaning 'to grow, arise, thrive'. This core idea of growth or augmentation evolved in French to denote a reinforcement of people, specifically military recruits or ship's company. Over centuries, 'crew' broadened to mean any organized group working together. The 20th-century slang clipping 'cru' strips the word down to its phonetic essence, retaining the sense of a tight-knit, often informal, social group or posse, thus carrying forward the ancient concept of a collective that has 'grown' together through association.

The word 'cru' is a modern English slang clipping of the word 'crew'. As a clipping, it is not productively formed from distinct morphemes in its current spelling. Its origin is from the full word 'crew', which itself derives from Middle French 'creue' (an increase, reinforcement), from the past participle of 'croistre' (to grow), from Latin 'crescere' (to grow).