claw back

claw back (third-person singular simple present claws back, present participle clawing back, simple past and past participle clawed back)

1. (transitive) To recover or retake, with great effort, something that was lost, often by a government or official agency.

   I was initially refused a refund, but eventually managed to claw back part of the money.

   • 2019 June 10, Heather Stewart, “Gove reboots Tory leadership bid with attack on Johnson”, in The Guardian‎:

     Michael Gove has tried to claw his way back into the race to be Britain’s next prime minister with a pledge to govern for “overlooked families and undervalued communities” – and a series of personal attacks on frontrunner Boris Johnson.