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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

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

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 26, 2026

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

The book is constructed like a cat’s cradle, a chronological double helix.

From New York Times • Oct. 15, 2019

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

Usually, Meadowlark and I use our before-bed time to talk, brush our teeth together, or play cat’s cradle or card games she invents.

From "The Wrong Way Home" by Kate O’Shaughnessy