Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The recovery of money that has been disbursed, as by a government, pension, or company.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun . Literally, one who claws the back; hence, one who fawns on another; a sycophant; a wheedler.
  • noun Same as back-scratcher, 1.
  • Flattering.
  • To fawn on; curry favor with.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To flatter.
  • noun obsolete A flatterer or sycophant.
  • adjective obsolete Flattering; sycophantic.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun 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.
  • noun Money that a party is entitled to keep under one tax provision, but which is taken from them by another tax provision.
  • noun US, business Any recovery of a performance-related payment based on discovery that the performance was not genuine.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun finding a way to take money back from people that they were given in another way

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

claw +‎ back

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Examples

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  • “But now, with a public backlash against excessive pay and taxpayer lifelines extended to crippled companies, the idea of recouping compensation, known as “clawback,�? is gaining traction.�?

    The New York Times, After Losses, a Move to Reclaim Executives’ Pay, by Gretchen Morgenson, February 21, 2009

    February 22, 2009