▪ I. ˈclaw-back
1. a. One who claws another's back (see claw v. 4); a flatterer, sycophant, parasite, ‘toady’.
| 1549 Latimer 2nd Serm. bef. Edw. VI (Arb.) 64 These flattering clawbackes are originall rotes of all mischyue. 1589 Warner Alb. Eng. v. xxv. 125 [It] doth make thy Foes to smile, Thy friends to weepe, and Clawbacks thee with Soothings to beguile. 1658 Ussher Ann. vi. 403 By the persuasion of some Claw-backs of the Court. a 1693 Urquhart Rabelais iii. iii. 38 These are my Flatterers,..my Clawbacks, my Saluters. 1881 Leicestersh. Gloss. (E.D.S.) Claw-back, a flatterer; parasite; ‘toad-eater’. a 1913 F. Rolfe Desire & Pursuit (1934) x. 93 The puffers and earwigs and clawbacks and parasites surrounding her. |
b. attrib. or adj.
| 1577–87 Holinshed Chron. III. 1101/1 More regarding plaine meaning men, than claw-backe flatterers. 1655 Trapp Marrow Gd. Auth. (1868) 830/2 His claw-back canonists tell him (and he believes it). |
2. [Substantival use of vbl. phr. to claw back (claw v. 2 a).] Retrieval, recovery (of an allowance by additional taxation, etc.).
| 1969 Daily Tel. 16 Apr. 24/4 It is..necessary to adjust the claw-back for 1969–70 so as to reflect the fact that the 3s extra on family allowances..will be paid for a full year in 1969–70. 1970 Sunday Times 31 May 12 Labour's latest big increase in family allowances was accompanied by what is nastily called ‘claw-back’, which means that those rich enough to pay income tax at the standard rate or above have the amount of the increase clawed back from them by taxation. |
▪ II. [claw-back v.
imagined by Richardson, from a misquotation of Warner (see above, quot. 1589, where R. has clawback as a vb.), and uncritically copied by subsequent compilers.
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