To take the Cat by the foote, and therewith rake the coales out of the Ouen.
Source: wiktionary
Cat's-paw
Synonyms for "cat's-paw" (8 found)
Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Closest matches (2)
Noun(2 words)
Strong matches (2)
Noun(2 words)
Related words (4)
Noun(4 words)
Related word relations
OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.
More general
9 entriesRelated terms
14 entriesa feature of gemstonesa person who does menial worka power tool used to remove nailsan unrelated metaphor from a separate storyan unrelated type of knotcat's eyedenailerdogsbodyflying monkeysin popular psychologymonkey's fistmonkey's pawpeople acting on behalf of a narcissistpull someone's chestnuts out of the fire
Translations
11 translations across 5 languages.
Chinese Mandarin
1 entries- 工具人 noun (someone who acts in another's interest)
Finnish
4 entries- apuri noun (someone who acts in another's interest)
- kenguruntassu noun (bloodwort of the genus Anigozanthos)
- kissan käpälä noun (paw of a cat)
- kissan tassu noun (paw of a cat)
German
2 entries- Katzenpfote noun (paw of a cat)
- Kuhfuß noun (small crowbar for pulling nails)
Hungarian
1 entries- eszköze noun (someone who acts in another's interest)
Russian
1 entries- гвоздодёр noun (small crowbar for pulling nails)
Sample sentences
12 total sentences available.
These he useth as the Monkey did the Cats paw, to scrape the nuts out of the fire.
Source: wiktionary
Cat's-paw, common in vulgar speech, but not in writing.
Source: wiktionary
Eddie Mars was behind Geiger, protecting him and using him for a cat's-paw.
Source: wiktionary
Showing 4 of 12 available sentences.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.