clew vs play on

clew

verb
  • to roll into a ball 

  • (transitive and intransitive) to raise the lower corner(s) of (a sail) 

noun
  • Yarn or thread as used to guide one's way through a maze or labyrinth; a guide, a clue. 

  • The cords suspending a hammock. 

  • The sheets so attached to a sail. 

  • The lower corner(s) of a sail to which a sheet is attached for trimming the sail (adjusting its position relative to the wind); the metal loop or cringle in the corner of the sail, to which the sheet is attached. (on a triangular sail) The trailing corner relative to the wind direction. 

play on

verb
  • to hit the ball into his own wicket, thus being out bowled 

  • Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see play, on. 

  • to let the game continue after a foul has been committed, because the situation is advantageous to the team who would be awarded a foul. 

  • To exploit by exacerbating. 

How often have the words clew and play on occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )