"red in tooth and claw" meaning in English

See red in tooth and claw in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Etymology: From Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem In Memoriam A.H.H. Head templates: {{en-adj|-}} red in tooth and claw (not comparable)
  1. So driven by one's animal instincts as to kill defenseless prey animals every day in order to feed. Wikipedia link: In Memoriam A.H.H. Tags: not-comparable Related terms: tooth and nail
    Sense id: en-red_in_tooth_and_claw-en-adj-drGB5HQD Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for red in tooth and claw meaning in English (1.0kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem In Memoriam A.H.H.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "red in tooth and claw (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "We love nature, but nature doesn't love us. One night in the Amazon rainforest will show us that nature is red in tooth and claw.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "So driven by one's animal instincts as to kill defenseless prey animals every day in order to feed."
      ],
      "id": "en-red_in_tooth_and_claw-en-adj-drGB5HQD",
      "links": [
        [
          "instinct",
          "instinct"
        ],
        [
          "prey",
          "prey"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "tooth and nail"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "not-comparable"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "In Memoriam A.H.H."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "red in tooth and claw"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem In Memoriam A.H.H.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "red in tooth and claw (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "tooth and nail"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English adjectives",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English uncomparable adjectives"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "We love nature, but nature doesn't love us. One night in the Amazon rainforest will show us that nature is red in tooth and claw.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "So driven by one's animal instincts as to kill defenseless prey animals every day in order to feed."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "instinct",
          "instinct"
        ],
        [
          "prey",
          "prey"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "not-comparable"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "In Memoriam A.H.H."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "red in tooth and claw"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.