catclaw

[kat-klaw]

noun

1. a prickly plant, Schrankia nutallii, of the legume family, native to the midwestern U.S. having pinnate leaves and tiny pink flowers forming a spherical cluster.

2. cat's-claw.

Word History and Origins

Origin of catclaw¹

cat ( def. ) + claw

Example Sentences

My 10-year-old daughter was skipping around the garden of indigenous plants at the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Visitor Center in Southern California and then, a minute later, “MOMMMMY!” from somewhere behind a catclaw acacia.

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We could hear his angry rumbling as he moved down through the thickets of catclaw and scrub oak.

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It moved here, to remote ranchlands where even the plant names — catclaw, saltbush, snakeweed — sound forbidding.

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A few days’ work, while he was waiting for his powder, would clear out the worst of the cactus and catclaws and give him free access to his hole.

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She gathered ironwood and catclaw while he watched her vigilantly.

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