bayag-kambing.' name='description'> cat's-claw - definition and meaning

Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See bayag-kambing.
  • noun A name given in the West Indies
  • noun to the Bignonia unguis, a climbing vine with claw-shaped tendrils, and
  • noun to the Pithecolobium Unguis-cati, on account of its curved pod.
  • noun In western Texas, a name of several species of Acacia with hooked thorns, as

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun erect shrub with small if any spines having racemes of white to yellow flowers followed by curved pointed pods and black shiny seeds; West Indies and Florida

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Benjy comes and sits most mournfully facing me when I settle down on a sunny morning, such as this, to write: and inquires, with all the dumbness a dog is capable of -- "What has come between us, that you fill up your time and mine with those cat's-claw scratchings, when you should be in your woodland dress running [with] me through damp places?"

    An Englishwoman's Love-Letters Anonymous

  • Well known cat's-claw and cactus clumps had disappeared.

    The Forbidden Trail Honor�� Morrow 1910

  • Kut-le strolled over to a cat's-claw bush at whose base lay a tangle of dead leaves.

    The Heart of the Desert Kut-Le of the Desert Honor�� Morrow 1910

  • Every night on the trail and at every camp she tried to leave some mark for the whites -- a scratch on pebble or stone, a bit of marked yucca or a twisted cat's-claw.

    The Heart of the Desert Kut-Le of the Desert Honor�� Morrow 1910

  • Then she crept around the cat's-claw, where a man squatted, his eyes blazing with excitement.

    The Heart of the Desert Kut-Le of the Desert Honor�� Morrow 1910

  • Rhoda yawned, rose sleepily, looked under her blanket and shook her, head irritably, then dragged her blankets toward the neighboring cat's-claw.

    The Heart of the Desert Kut-Le of the Desert Honor�� Morrow 1910

  • But after a few steps she found running impossible, for the slope was a wilderness of rock, thickly grown with cholla and yucca with here and there a thicker growth of cat's-claw.

    The Heart of the Desert Kut-Le of the Desert Honor�� Morrow 1910

  • "Make as if you wanted to shift your blankets toward the cat's-claw bush behind you!" went on the whispered voice.

    The Heart of the Desert Kut-Le of the Desert Honor�� Morrow 1910

  • It is about thi'ee miles wide by five long, and is covered with a thorny thicket in which the "cat's-claw" or

    Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 1771

  • He must have an angelic disposition who can walk a mile through bushes covered with the "cat's-claw" or "wait-a-bit" vine and emerge in a serene frame of mind.

    Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 1771

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