Word.ws English Dictionary

cat's cradle

cat's cradle noun: a children's game of forming string into various shapes around one's fingers.

Noun

cat's cradle (countable and uncountable, plural cat's cradles)

  1. (uncountable) A children's game of forming string into various shapes around one's fingers.
  2. (countable, idiomatic) Any complicated structure that appears to be without purpose.
    • There was the a risk that my research might reveal the original, rightful owner of an instrument, which could open up a cat's cradle of restitution claims.2020, Sophy Roberts, The Lost Pianos of Siberia, page 89

Forms of cat's cradle

pluralcat's cradles

Questions about cat's cradle

What does cat's cradle mean?
Cat's cradle means a children's game of forming string into various shapes around one's fingers.
What part of speech is cat's cradle?
Cat's cradle is a noun.
What is the plural of cat's cradle?
The plural of cat's cradle is cat's cradles.

Words near cat's cradle in the dictionary

  1. cat's breakfast
  2. cat's breakfasts
  3. cat's chance in hell
  4. cat's claw
  5. cat's claws
  6. cat's cradle
  7. cat's cradles
  8. cat's ear
  9. cat's eye
  10. cat's eyes
  11. cat's game

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cat's cradle (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-cat's cradle.ogg.

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