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Claw   /klɔ/   Listen
noun
Claw  n.  
1.
A sharp, hooked nail, as of a beast or bird.
2.
The whole foot of an animal armed with hooked nails; the pinchers of a lobster, crab, etc.
3.
Anything resembling the claw of an animal, as the curved and forked end of a hammer for drawing nails.
4.
(Bot.) A slender appendage or process, formed like a claw, as the base of petals of the pink.
Claw hammer, a hammer with one end of the metallic head cleft for use in extracting nails, etc.
Claw hammer coat, a dress coat of the swallowtail pattern. (Slang)
Claw sickness, foot rot, a disease affecting sheep.



verb
Claw  v. t.  (past & past part. clawed; pres. part. clawing)  
1.
To pull, tear, or scratch with, or as with, claws or nails.
2.
To relieve from some uneasy sensation, as by scratching; to tickle; hence, to flatter; to court. (Obs.) "Rich men they claw, soothe up, and flatter; the poor they contemn and despise."
3.
To rail at; to scold. (Obs.) "In the aforesaid preamble, the king fairly claweth the great monasteries, wherein, saith he, religion, thanks be to God, is right well kept and observed; though he claweth them soon after in another acceptation."
Claw me,
Claw thee
, stand by me and I will stand by you; an old proverb.
To claw away, to scold or revile. "The jade Fortune is to be clawed away for it, if you should lose it."
To claw (one) on the back, to tickle; to express approbation. (Obs.)
To claw (one) on the gall, to find fault with; to vex. (Obs.)



Claw  v. i.  To scrape, scratch, or dig with a claw, or with the hand as a claw. "Clawing (in ash barrels) for bits of coal."
To claw off (Naut.), to turn to windward and beat, to prevent falling on a lee shore.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Claw" Quotes from Famous Books



... burden the monks forever. Wealth changes hands—that is one of its peculiarities. War came, red of tooth and claw, and the soldiery, which heretofore had been used only to protect the religious orders, now flushed with victory, turned against them. Charges were trumped up against churchmen high in authority, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... face suddenly reddened with passion. She raised her claw-like hand and struck the bold ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson

... now resembled a mass of dried leather twisted into a deformity, without the slightest shape of an arm; this was about fourteen inches in length from the shoulder. The stiff and crippled hand, with contracted fingers, resembled the claw of a vulture. ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... yet work as he would he could not feed the rest. There was no fine-drawn distinction now—every palo verde on the hillside fell before his axe, whether it was fine-leaved and short-thorned, or rough and spiny; and the cattle ate them all. Mesquite and cat-claw and ironwood, tough as woven wire and barbed at every joint, these were all that were left except cactus and the armored sahuaros. In desperation he piled brush beneath clumps of fuzzy chollas, the thorniest cactus that grows, and burned off the resinous spines; but the silky bundles of ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... she called me papa, went to Germany, nearly three years ago, in charge of her music teacher, Sister Florence, to finish herself off. Ah, John, you ort to see her claw ivory! Before she went, she called me into the mission parlor, one day, and almost got me into a snap; she wanted me to tell her all about her parents right then, and asked me if there wasn't some mystery about her birth, ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady


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