cat's-paw

• cat's paw
• catspaw

From cat + paw. In most senses, due to a resemblance of shape. In its senses as a pawn to another's interests or analysis, variant of earlier cat's-foot, derived from European tales of a monkey (attested as early as 1456[1] but sometimes misattributed to the 16th-century monkey of Pope Julius II) who used a sleeping puppy[2] or cat's foot to rake hot chestnuts out of a fire, taken as a metaphor for rulers' ill use of their subjects. Now usually understood in light of Jean de La Fontaine's 1679 fable of the "The Monkey and the Cat" (sometimes misattributed to Aesop), in which the monkey fools the cat into removing the chestnuts through flattery and promises of shared reward. The cat removes the chestnuts one by one, burning his paw while the monkey eats each in turn. A maid then enters and chases them both away. La Fontaine's moral concludes that princes should not endure real losses for mere flattery from their king.

cat's-paw (plural cat's-paws or cats'-paws)

1. A paw of a cat.
2. (figuratively) Someone who acts in another's interest, (properly) unknowingly or through trickery.
   • 1622, Mateo Alemán, translated by James Mabbe, The Rogue, volume II, page 167:

     To take the Cat by the foote, and therewith rake the coales out of the Ouen.

   • 1657, Michael Hawke, Killing is Murder and No Murder, page 3:

     These he useth as the Monkey did the Cats paw, to scrape the nuts out of the fire.

   • 1836, Charles Richardson, A New Dictionary of the English Language, s.v. "Cat":

     Cat's-paw, common in vulgar speech, but not in writing.

   • 1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, page 243:

     Eddie Mars was behind Geiger, protecting him and using him for a cat's-paw.

   • 2022, Jonathan V. Last, (Please provide the book title or journal name):

     And for a third thing, Johnson never seemed like he was intent on blowing up NATO because he was a Russian cat’s paw.

3. (nautical) A minor breeze that ripples the surface of a body of water.
   • 1769, William Falconer, An Universal Dictionary of the Marine:

     Cats-paw, a light air of wind perceived... by the impression made on the surface of the sea, which it sweeps very lightly, and then decays.

   • 1845, Thomas Hood, The Captain’s Cow:

     No, not a cat’s paw anywhere:
     Hold up your finger in the air
     You could n’t feel a breath;
     For why, in yonder storm that burst,
     The wind that blew so hard at first
     Had blown itself to death.

   • 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London, Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC:

     “Now,” said Hands, “look there; there’s a pet bit for to beach a ship in. Fine flat sand, never a cat’s paw, trees all around of it, and flowers a-blowing like a garding on that old ship.”

   • 1930, Arthur Ransome, Swallows and Amazons:

     There was very little wind, though now and again a catspaw hurrying from the south helped them on their way and darkened the smooth small waves.

4. (nautical) A twisting variant of the lark's-foot hitch which forms two small bights used to hook a pair of tackles to a rope.
   • 1840, Richard Henry Dana, chapter XXXIII, in Two Years Before the Mast, page 125:

     ...when the mate came to shake the catspaw out of the down-haul...

5. (figuratively, uncommon) Someone or something that comes down quickly upon a victim in the manner of a cat's paw.
   • 1820, John Keats, “Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil. A Story from Boccaccio.”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC, stanza XVII, page 57:

     [T]hese Florentines [...] / In hungry pride and gainful cowardice, / [...] / Quick cat's-paws on the generous stray-away.

6. (US carpentry) A small crowbar with a handle at a right angle to a blade with a V-shaped notch, principally used by carpenters to remove nails.
   • 1954 November 10, U.S. Patent Office, Official Gazette, page 321:

     Filed Dec. 13, 1952. Cat's Paw. For Hand Tools for Pulling Nails and Spikes.

7. (historical weaponry, torture) A metal set of claws worn over the hand or wielded in the hand used to remove skin and flesh.
8. (US law) A supervisor whose reliance on a subordinate's analysis is so complete as to render him or her liable for the subordinate's animus or other misconduct towards a third employee.
9. Any of several species of North American freshwater mussels of the genus Epioblasma, especially E. obliquata.
10. Any of several species of Australian bloodworts of the genus Anigozanthos, especially A. humilis.

• (one unwittingly used for another's purposes): dupe, cat's-foot
• (carpenter's tool): cat's claw
• (American legal term): rubber stamp
• (Australian bloodworts): kangaroo paw

• (one used for another's purposes): pawn, puppet, tool
• (carpenter's tool): nail puller

• monkey's paw, an unrelated metaphor from a separate story
• cat's eye, a feature of gemstones
• monkey's fist, an unrelated type of knot
• flying monkeys, in popular psychology, people acting on behalf of a narcissist
• denailer, a power tool used to remove nails
• dogsbody, a person who does menial work
• pull someone's chestnuts out of the fire

• "cat's paw | cat's-paw, n." in the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• "Cat's Paw" in Lloyd Duhaime's Duhaime's Law Dictionary (2017).
• "Cat's Paw" in Nigette M. Spikes's Dictionary of Torture (2014), Bloomington: Abbott Press.
• "The Spanish Tickler" on Joaquin de la Sierra's Medieval Times & Castles (2008).