CAT'S-PAW • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Cat's-paw

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/kæts-pɔ/ Listen

noun

Cat's-paw n.

(Naut.)

(a)

A light transitory air which ruffles the surface of the water during a calm, or the ripples made by such a puff of air.

(b)

A particular hitch or turn in the bight of a rope, into which a tackle may be hooked.

A dupe; a tool; one who, or that which, is used by another as an instrument to a accomplish his purposes. Note: In this sense the term refers to the fable of the monkey using the cat's paw to draw the roasting chestnuts out of the fire.

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Etymology of 'Cat's-paw'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Cat's-paw" Quotes from Famous Books

... well-known and universally respected American citizen, had been turned, by means of those girls playing upon weaknesses she shuddered to think of but that she had reason to believe, from books she had studied and conversations she had reluctantly taken part in, were not altogether uncommon, into a cat's-paw of the German Government. ...

— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... come to the place," he thought. "Perhaps the young fellow has been making a cat's-paw of me all the time, and has gone to church and got married, ha! ha! ha! that would be a joke; but by-the-bye it's out of canonical hours; he cannot ...

— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston

... Father Smyth had cut me short; joined both his hands, and with the stretched forefinger tapping me on both hands, which were clenched as in prayer, addressed to me these identical remarkable words, "My dear fellow, the licence is a mere watchword of the day, and they make a cat's-paw of you." ...

— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello

... just about seven o'clock in the evening. The boat was well out in the bay, between three and four miles from land, when John noticed a fresh "cat's-paw" of wind, just touching the water here and there. There was scarcely a cloud in the sky, and nothing whatever to suggest a squall. But as he looked again, a suspicious wisp of white water lifted suddenly ...

— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... addressed Mrs. Wilkins directly. She was sixty-five, and cared very little what sorts of women she happened to be with for a month, but if the women were to be mixed with men it was a different proposition altogether. She was not going to be made a cat's-paw of. She had not come out there to sanction by her presence what used in her day to be called fast behaviour. Nothing had been said at the interview in London about men; if there had been she would have declined, of course ...

— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim

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