* The Journey of a Thousand Words: Listen to an autobiographical talk by * Anu Garg, the founder of Wordsmith.org at the Seattle Public Library (Ballard) * Mon, Jan 14 at 6:30pm. Details at http://wordsmith.org/awad/speaking.html
This week's theme: Whose what? (animal edition) cat's paw (cats paw) noun 1. Someone used as a tool by another. 2. A kind of knot used to connect a rope to an object. 3. A breeze that ruffles the surface of the water over a small area. [The first sense of the term comes from the fable in which a monkey uses a cat to pull roasting chestnuts from a fire. The monkey gobbles up all the nuts while the cat is left with a burnt paw. See Edwin Landseer's 1824 painting Cat's Paw: http://museumsyndicate.com/item.php?item=2992 The second sense refers to the supposed resemblance of such a knot to a cat's paw: http://images.google.com/images?q=cat's+paw+knot The origin of the third sense is unknown.] Today's word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=cat's-paw -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "Prime Minister Tony Blair was reprimanded in the British parliament for his willingness to be the cat's paw of the U.S." Craig R. Eisendrath and Melvin A. Goodman; Shoot First, Talk Later; USA Today (Washington, DC); Jul 1, 2004. Sponsored by: Acronym Finder -- the authoritative acronym and abbreviation reference source for over 10 years. Free and easy to use. http://www.acronymfinder.com/awad.aspx Low fat music? Motivating lyrics to a rhythmic beat. Good listening too. A perfect post-holidays partner to diet and exercise. http://skinnysongs.com Announce your products, services, or message here. Reach more than 600,000 people in this space. Write to: sponsorsATwordsmith.org (replace AT with @). ............................................................................ It is not how old you are, but how you are old. -Jules Renard, writer (1864-1910) Looking for word/quotation archives: http://wordsmith.org/awad/archives.html Unsubscribe, change address, etc: http://wordsmith.org/awad/subscriber.html Pronunciation: http://wordsmith.org/words/cats_paw.wav http://wordsmith.org/words/cats_paw.ram Permalink: http://wordsmith.org/words/cats_paw.html This message was sent to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]".
