crow's-foot

American  

[krohz-foot] / ˈkroʊzˌfʊt /

noun

crow's-feet plural

1. Usually crow's-feet. any of the tiny wrinkles at the outer corners of the eyes resulting from age or constant squinting.

2. Aeronautics. an arrangement of ropes in which one main rope exerts pull at several points simultaneously through a group of smaller ropes, as in balloon or airship rigging.

3. (in tailoring) a three-pointed embroidered design used as a finish, as at the end of a seam or opening.

4. crowfoot.

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crow's-foot British  

noun

1. (often plural) a wrinkle at the outer corner of the eye

2. an embroidery stitch with three points, used esp as a finishing at the end of a seam

3. a system of diverging short ropes to distribute the pull of a single rope, used esp in balloon and airship riggings

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Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

noun

• crow's-feet
  plural

Etymology

Origin of crow's-foot

1350–1400; Middle English; so called because likened to a crow's foot or footprint

Example Sentences

"It will be noticed, for it isn't avoidable," Capote wrote, "how often he emphasizes the elderly; and, even among the just middle-aged, unrelentingly tracks down every hard-earned crow's foot."

From Salon • Jan. 16, 2023

With this solution I filled the jar almost to the top and then hung over the edge a sort of a crow’s foot shape of cast zinc.

From Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son by Mills, John

She is a little stouter, of course; I can see a wrinkle and a crow's foot here and there; and her hair is grizzled.

From The Opinions of a Philosopher by Grant, Robert

They are like our crow's foot, horseshoe, pigtail, fleur-de-lys, diamond, spade, wavy, broken—metaphorically or directly descriptive.

From Mohave Pottery by Harner, Michaell J.

Anne haggard, Mary coarse, every face in the neighbourhood worsting, and the rapid increase of the crow's foot about Lady Russell's temples had long been a distress to him.

From Persuasion by Austen, Jane