| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
| |
| paw |
| |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  pô |
| NOUN: | 1. The foot of an animal, especially a quadruped, that has claws or nails. 2. Informal A human hand, especially a large clumsy one: “Lennie dabbled his big paw in the water” (John Steinbeck). | | VERB: | Inflected forms: pawed, paw·ing, paws
| | TRANSITIVE VERB: | 1. To strike with the paw or paws. 2. To strike or scrape with a beating motion: The bull pawed the ground before charging. 3. To handle clumsily, rudely, or with too much familiarity. See synonyms at touch. | | INTRANSITIVE VERB: | 1. To scrape the ground with the forefeet: The horse pawed restlessly. 2. To handle someone or something clumsily, rudely, or with too much familiarity: Don't paw at everything you see. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English pawe, from Old French powe. | | OTHER FORMS: | paw er —NOUN
| | |
| |
| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
|
|
