paw

Paw is defined as the hand or the foot of a four-legged animal.

(noun)

An example of a paw is a cat's foot.

Paw means to touch or hit something, often in a clumsy or rough way.

(verb)

An example of paw is for a cat to keep hitting a stream of water with her foot.

See paw in Webster's New World College Dictionary

noun

Origin: ME paue < OFr poue < Frank *pauta, a paw (< pre-Celt *pauta) > Ger pfote

transitive verb, intransitive verb

to touch, dig, hit, strike out (at), etc. with the paws or feet: a horse pawing the air
1. to handle clumsily or roughly: she pawed angrily through the papers on her desk
2. to caress in too familiar a way

Related Forms:

noun

Dialectal pa; papa; father

See paw in American Heritage Dictionary 4

noun

The foot of an animal, especially a quadruped, that has claws or nails.
Informal A human hand, especially a large clumsy one: “Lennie dabbled his big paw in the water” (John Steinbeck).

verb pawed, paw·ing, paws

verb, transitive

To strike with the paw or paws.
To strike or scrape with a beating motion: The bull pawed the ground before charging.
To handle clumsily, rudely, or with too much familiarity. See Synonyms at touch.

verb, intransitive

To scrape the ground with the forefeet: The horse pawed restlessly.
To handle someone or something clumsily, rudely, or with too much familiarity: Don't paw at everything you see.

Origin:

Origin: Middle English pawe

Origin: , from Old French powe

Related Forms: