Claw

How to spell claw

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce claw

What does claw mean?

1. nounA curved, pointed nail on the foot of an animal or bird, or a similar pincer on a crab or lobster.
2. verbTo scratch, grip, or tear at something with nails, hands, or hooked fingers.

Claw in a sentence

• noun

  The cat caught its claw on the carpet.

• verb

  The trapped climbers had to claw at the loose rock to find a hold.

• noun

  The lobster gripped the bait with one large claw.

• verb

  The frightened kitten began to claw at the curtains.

Where does claw come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Claw descends from the Old English noun clawu, which simply meant the nail, hoof, or talon of an animal, and it is one of the genuinely native words of English rather than a later borrowing. It belongs to a broad Germanic family, with close relatives such as the Dutch klauw and the German Klaue, all tracing back to a common ancestor meaning a curved or gripping nail. The same root also gave English the word 'clutch', and you can still feel that sense of grasping in both words. Over the centuries the spelling settled with the 'aw' ending, mirroring the way the vowel sound is held, which is why the silent edge that learners expect from older spellings never appears here. The verb sense, meaning to scratch or tear at something with hooked nails, grew naturally out of the noun and was well established by the medieval period.

How the word is built

• claw (single root, from Old English clawu: nail, talon); no prefix or suffix