Word.ws English Dictionary

declawed

declawed is the simple past and past participle of declaw.

Meaning of declaw

Verb

declaw (third-person singular simple present declaws, present participle declawing, simple past and past participle declawed)

  1. (transitive) To surgically remove the claws of (an animal); to perform onychectomy on.
    • On Oct. 9, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that bans cats from being declawed statewide. Veterinarians can no longer declaw cats even if an owner wants the procedure to be done.2025 October 20, Kai Arellano, “New California law prohibits declawing cats”, in CapRadio, archived from the original on 25 Oct 2025
  2. (figuratively, transitive) To make harmless; to remove the power, authority, or force from.
    • The acerbic comedy has been declawed by the demands of network TV.

Questions about declawed

What is declawed the simple past and past participle of?
Declawed is the simple past and past participle of declaw.

Words near declawed in the dictionary

  1. declassifies
  2. declassify
  3. declassifying
  4. declassing
  5. declaw
  6. declawed
  7. declawing
  8. declawings
  9. declaws
  10. decleanse
  11. decleansed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: declawed (page history and authors); declaw (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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Cite this entry: “declawed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/declawed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.