cat scratch
1
1.0
- noun
:
rasguño de gato
- A pregnant woman tells her story about how toxoplasma got into her from a cat scratch.
- cat scratch disease
- case of cat scratch
Examples
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It's important to clean any cat scratch immediately to avoid complications.
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Feels like just yesterday you were showing me how to hide that cat scratch on my face with that cover-up.
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The patient was referred to our institution, where we diagnosed cat-scratch disease.
Academic text (2004) -
I've even heard of it being the only thing that helped an infection from a cat scratch.
Blog text (15) -
Most cases of cat-scratch disease are seen in patients younger than 20 years, and males are affected more often than females.
Academic text (2004) -
Cat-scratch disease is a febrile lymphadenopathy often seen in children following exposure to Bartonella henselae.
Academic text (2004) -
After playing with the kittens, I found several red marks on my arm, which I realized were cat scratches.
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She applied antiseptic cream to the cat scratch on her wrist to prevent infection.
Synonyms
30
1.3
A mark on a surface caused by rubbing it against something hard
4
3.4
A small scrape that removes the top layer of skin
1
8.8
A small light mark made when something rubs a surface like skin or wood
How Severe
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a scratch caused by a cat' is directly and literally composed from 'cat' + 'scratch' with no idiomatic shift; it is a straightforward noun‑noun compound describing its referent. This transparent, compositional pattern is common across languages and would be immediately understandable to a B1 learner who knows both constituent words.
Etymology
The noun cat scratch comes from the simple image of a cat using its sharp claws to make a small scratch on a person's skin. So, it now means 'a scratch on the skin caused by a cat's claws'.