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• cat's cradle
  cat's cradle

  noun

  a children's game in which two players alternately stretch a looped string over their fingers in such a way as to produce different designs.
• Cat's Cradle
  Cat's Cradle

  noun

  a novel (1963) by Kurt Vonnegut.

cat's cradle

¹ American  

noun

1. a children's game in which two players alternately stretch a looped string over their fingers in such a way as to produce different designs.

2. the intricate design formed by the string in this game.

3. intricacy; complexity.

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Cat's Cradle ² American  

noun

1. a novel (1963) by Kurt Vonnegut.

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cat's cradle British  

noun

1. a game played by making intricate patterns with a loop of string between the fingers

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Etymology

Origin of cat's cradle

First recorded in 1760–70

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cat's cradle Cat's Cradle

By the 1880s, a cat’s cradle of submerged telegraph lines wound around the globe.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 26, 2026

Although often compared to cat’s cradle, hei is more than a children’s game; it is a symbolic language.

From New York Times ● Oct. 4, 2022

The noodle master in the open kitchen stretches and twists the strings of dough as if mimicking a game of cat’s cradle.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 3, 2022

No other series has propelled such a massive yet impeccably individualized cast through such an impossibly intricate cat’s cradle of story lines that honestly should have collapsed long ago but didn’t.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 11, 2019

The clinging white mist made all the wires that crisscrossed the city stand out like a cat’s cradle.

From "Book Scavenger" by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

As an example, he pointed to Irving Langmuir, a chemistry Nobel laureate, colleague of Vonnegut’s brother, and the inspiration for the amoral physicist in Cat’s Cradle.

From Science Magazine ● Nov. 10, 2022

As in Cat’s Cradle or Catch-22, humanity is trapped within an ever more vicious circle created by its own skewed logic and techno-dependency.

From The Guardian ● Mar. 6, 2021

After dinner, Mr. Smith put on his baseball hat and walked over to Cat’s Cradle, as he did after dinner shifts for decades.

From New York Times ● Apr. 7, 2020

It’s possible the CIA subscribed to the belief that, like ice-nine in Cat’s Cradle, polywater was capable of uncontrollably self-replicating.

From Slate ● Nov. 8, 2013

So we talk about Vonnegut and I tell her that my favorite book of his is Cat’s Cradle.

From "Things Not Seen" by Andrew Clements