Word.ws English Dictionary

get one's claws out

get one's claws out verb: to prepare to attack or retaliate.

Verb

get one's claws out (third-person singular simple present gets one's claws out, present participle getting one's claws out, simple past got one's claws out, past participle (UK) got one's claws out or (US) gotten one's claws out)

  1. To prepare to attack or retaliate
    • That cat will always get its claws out when it sees a mouse.
  2. (idiomatic) To prepare to attack or retaliate
    • You'd better watch out: she's got her claws out for you.

Forms of get one's claws out

third-person singular presentgets one's claws out
present participlegetting one's claws out
pastgot one's claws out
past participle UKgot one's claws out
past participle USgotten one's claws out

Questions about get one's claws out

What does get one's claws out mean?
Get one's claws out means to prepare to attack or retaliate.
What part of speech is get one's claws out?
Get one's claws out is a verb.
What is the past tense of get one's claws out?
The past tense of get one's claws out is got one's claws out.

Words near get one's claws out in the dictionary

  1. get one's bowels in an uproar
  2. get one's breath back
  3. get one's butt somewhere
  4. get one's claws into
  5. get one's claws on
  6. get one's claws out
  7. get one's clock cleaned
  8. get one's crap together
  9. get one's dick wet
  10. get one's ducks in a row
  11. get one's end away

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: get one's claws out (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-get one's claws out.ogg.

Cite this entry: “get one's claws out.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/get_one%27s_claws_out. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.