clawback

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clawback

Where it comes from

Deverbal from claw back. In the financial senses, refers to something being "clawed back", or reclaimed; in the sense of a flatterer, it suggests the idea of a person's back being scratched (see scratch someone's back).

noun clawbacks

US, countable, uncountable, of evidence A rule that permits a party to take back evidentiary materials that were mistakenly turned over to the other party but to which the other party would not have been entitled.
US, countable, uncountable Money that a party is entitled to keep under one tax provision but is taken by another tax provision.
US, countable, uncountable Any recovery of a performance-related payment based on discovery that the performance was not genuine. The airline got a clawback provision in the event of failure of the engines to meet fuel-consumption targets.
Similar: malus
countable, obsolete, uncountable A flatterer or sycophant. Take hede of theſe claubackes, theſe venemous people that wil come to you, that will folowe like Gnatoes and Paraſites, if you folowe them, you are oute of your boke.

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MLA

"clawback." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/clawback. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

clawback. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/clawback

Chicago

"clawback." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/clawback.

BibTeX

@misc{clawback_2026,
  title = {clawback},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/clawback},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}