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Claw or Talon - What's the difference?

claw | talon |

As nouns the difference between claw and talon

is that claw is a curved, pointed horny nail on each digit of the foot of a mammal, reptile, or bird while talon is a sharp, hooked claw of a bird of prey or other predatory animal.

As a verb claw

is to scratch or to tear at.

claw

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) clawe, from (etyl) clawu, from (etyl) . Compare West Frisian klau, Dutch klauw, German Klaue, Danish klo.

Noun

(en noun)
  • A curved, pointed horny nail on each digit of the foot of a mammal, reptile, or bird.
  • A foot equipped with such.
  • The pincer (chela) of a crustacean or other arthropod.
  • A mechanical device resembling a claw, used for gripping or lifting.
  • (botany) A slender appendage or process, formed like a claw, such as the base of petals of the pink.
    • (Gray)
  • (juggling, uncountable) The act of catching a ball overhand.
    • Derived terms
    * claw hammer * get one's claws into
    External links
    * (wikipedia "claw")

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) clawian, from clawu.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To scratch or to tear at.
  • * '>citation
    • Using her hands like windshield wipers, she tried to flick snow away from her mouth. When she clawed at her chest and neck, the crumbs maddeningly slid back onto her face. She grew claustrophobic.
  • To use the claws to seize, to grip.
  • To use the claws to climb.
  • (juggling) To perform a catch.
  • To move with one's fingertips.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , date=October 15 , author=Phil McNulty , title=Liverpool 1 - 1 Man Utd , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=De Gea was United's hero again within seconds of Hernandez's equaliser, diving to his left to claw away Dirk Kuyt's shot as he got on the end of a superb cross from Stewart Downing.}}
  • (obsolete) To relieve uneasy feeling, such as an itch, by scratching; hence, to humor or flatter, to court someone.
  • * 1599 ,
    • I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man's jests; eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man's leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend on no man's business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humour.
  • * Holland
    • Rich men they claw , soothe up, and flatter; the poor they contemn and despise.
  • (obsolete) To rail at; to scold.
  • * T. Fuller
    • In the aforesaid preamble, the king fairly claweth' the great monasteries, wherein, saith he, religion, thanks be to God, is right well kept and observed; though he ' claweth them soon after in another acceptation.

    talon

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A sharp, hooked claw of a bird of prey or other predatory animal.
    • (Francis Bacon)
  • (zoology) One of certain small prominences on the hind part of the face of an elephant's tooth.
  • (architecture) A kind of moulding, concave at the bottom and convex at the top; an ogee. (When the concave part is at the top, it is called an inverted talon .)
  • The shoulder of the bolt of a lock on which the key acts to shoot the bolt.
    • (Knight)
  • In the card game bezique, the remaining stock of undealt cards.

    • Derived terms

    * taloned

    Anagrams

    * * * ----