cat's-paw
cat's-paw noun: a paw of a cat.
Noun
cat's-paw (plural cat's-paws or cats'-paws)
- A paw of a cat.
- Someone who acts in another's interest, (properly) unknowingly or through trickery.
- To take the Cat by the foote, and therewith rake the coales out of the Ouen.1622, Mateo Alemán, translated by James Mabbe, The Rogue, volume II, page 167
- These he useth as the Monkey did the Cats paw, to scrape the nuts out of the fire.1657, Michael Hawke, Killing is Murder and No Murder, page 3
- A minor breeze that ripples the surface of a body of water.
- Cats-paw, a light air of wind perceived... by the impression made on the surface of the sea, which it sweeps very lightly, and then decays.1769, William Falconer, An Universal Dictionary of the Marine
- No, not a cat’s paw anywhere:
Hold up your finger in the air
You could n’t feel a breath;
For why, in yonder storm that burst,
The wind that blew so hard at first
Had blown itself to death.1845, Thomas Hood, The Captain’s Cow
- A twisting variant of the lark's-foot hitch which forms two small bights used to hook a pair of tackles to a rope.
- ...when the mate came to shake the catspaw out of the down-haul...1840, Richard Henry Dana, chapter XXXIII, in Two Years Before the Mast, page 125
- Someone or something that comes down quickly upon a victim in the manner of a cat's paw.
- [T]hese Florentines [...] / In hungry pride and gainful cowardice, / [...] / Quick cat's-paws on the generous stray-away.1820, John Keats, “Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil. A Story from Boccaccio.”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC...
- A small crowbar with a handle at a right angle to a blade with a V-shaped notch, principally used by carpenters to remove nails.
- Filed Dec. 13, 1952. Cat's Paw. For Hand Tools for Pulling Nails and Spikes.1954 November 10, U.S. Patent Office, Official Gazette, page 321
- A metal set of claws worn over the hand or wielded in the hand used to remove skin and flesh.
- A supervisor whose reliance on a subordinate's analysis is so complete as to render him or her liable for the subordinate's animus or other misconduct towards a third employee.
- Any of several species of North American freshwater mussels of the genus Epioblasma, especially E. obliquata.
- Synonyms:
- rubber stamp
- Any of several species of Australian bloodworts of the genus Anigozanthos, especially A. humilis.
- Synonyms:
- kangaroo paw
Examples of cat's-paw in a sentence
- Cat's-paw, common in vulgar speech, but not in writing.1836, Charles Richardson, A New Dictionary of the English Language, s.v. "Cat"
- Eddie Mars was behind Geiger, protecting him and using him for a cat's-paw.1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, page 243:
Synonyms of cat's-paw
Forms of cat's-paw
| plural | cat's-paws |
|---|---|
| plural | cats'-paws |
| alternative form | cat's paw |
| alternative form | catspaw |
Origin of cat's-paw
From cat + paw. In most senses, due to a resemblance of shape. In its senses as a pawn to another's interests or analysis, variant of earlier cat's-foot, derived from European tales of a monkey (attested as early as 1456 but sometimes misattributed to the 16th-century monkey of Pope Julius II) who used a sleeping puppy or cat's foot to rake hot chestnuts out of a fire, taken as a metaphor for rulers' ill use of their subjects. Now usually understood in light of Jean de La Fontaine's 1679 fable of the "The Monkey and the Cat" (sometimes misattributed to Aesop), in which the monkey fools the cat into removing the chestnuts through flattery and promises of shared reward. The cat removes the chestnuts one by one, burning his paw while the monkey eats each in turn. A maid then enters and chases them both away. La Fontaine's moral concludes that princes should not endure real losses for mere flattery from their king.
Questions about cat's-paw
- What does cat's-paw mean?
- Cat's-paw means a paw of a cat.
- How do you use cat's-paw in a sentence?
- Cat's-paw, common in vulgar speech, but not in writing.
- What part of speech is cat's-paw?
- Cat's-paw is a noun.
- What is the plural of cat's-paw?
- The plural of cat's-paw is cat's-paws.
Words near cat's-paw in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cat's-paw (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “cat's-paw.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cat%27s-paw. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.