Obs. exc. dial. 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 perswasion 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.’
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).
[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.]
