foreclaw
1
7.7
A sharp curved nail on the front foot of an animal, like a cat or bird
- noun
- /ˈfɔrˌklɔ/
- Specialized
:
garra delantera
- As the dinosaur approached, its enormous foreclaw made the ground tremble.
Examples
-
On his forefinger, or foreclaw, there glistened a brilliant diamond.
Fiction book (1991) -
The bear's sharp foreclaw dug into the bark as it climbed the tree.
-
The cat playfully extended its foreclaw to bat at the feather toy.
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Foreclaw comes from the prefix fore- meaning 'front', as in forehead and before, plus claw meaning 'sharp nail' of an animal. So a foreclaw is the claw on the front foot or limb, the one an animal uses to grab, scratch, or climb.