cat's-claw

1. 1.

   erect shrub with small if any spines having racemes of white to yellow flowers followed by curved pointed pods and black shiny seeds; West Indies and Florida

   Synonymscatclawblack beadPithecellobium unguis-cati

   Broadershrub

   Part ofPithecellobium

Questions about cat's-claw

What does cat's-claw mean?

cat's-claw means "erect shrub with small if any spines having racemes of white to yellow flowers followed by curved pointed pods and black shiny seeds; West Indies and Florida".

How many syllables are in cat's-claw?

cat's-claw has 2 syllables: cat's--claw. The stress falls on "cat's-".

What is another word for cat's-claw?

Close synonyms include catclaw, black bead, Pithecellobium unguis-cati. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is cat's-claw a common word?

cat's-claw is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.