1. The paw of a cat; fig. that which comes down like the paw of a cat upon its victim.
1821. Keats, Isabel, xvii. These Florentines … In hungry pride and gainful cowardice … Quick cat’s-paws on the generous stray-away.
2. A person used as a tool by another to accomplish a purpose; see the earlier CAT’S-FOOT.
[1657. M. Hawke, Killing is Murder, 3. These he useth as the Monkey did the Cats paw, to scrape the nuts out of the fire.]
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulgar T., Tool, cat’s paw.
1817. in Churchyard’s Chippes, 165, note. Bothwell was merely the cat’s-paw of Murray, Morton, and Maitland.
1837. Richardson, s.v. Cat, Cat’s-paw, common in vulgar speech, but not in writing.
1877. Mrs. Forrester, Mignon, I. 105. I am not going to be made a cat’s paw of.
1883. American, VI. 245. Making themselves mere catspaws to secure chestnuts for those publishers.
3. Naut. A slight and local breeze, which shows itself by rippling the surface of the sea.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), 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.
1835. Marryat, Jac. Faithf., xxxix. Cat’s-paws of wind, as they call them, flew across the water here and there, ruffling its smooth surface.
1853. Longf., Gol. Leg., V. At Sea. Sudden flaws Struck the sea with their cat’s-paws.
4. Naut. ‘A twisting hitch, made in the bight of a rope, so as to induce two small bights, in order to hook a tackle on them both’ (Smyth).
1794. [implied in vb., q.v.].
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xxxiii. 125. When the mate came to shake the catspaw out of the down-haul.
c. 1860. H. Stuart, Seaman’s Catech., 34. Make a cat’s-paw in the fall of the luff.
