TALON

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does talon mean? 

• TALON (noun)
  The noun TALON has 1 sense:

1. a sharp hooked claw especially on a bird of prey

  Familiarity information: TALON used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TALON (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A sharp hooked claw especially on a bird of prey

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("talon" is a kind of...):

claw (sharp curved horny process on the toe of a bird or some mammals or reptiles)

Holonyms ("talon" is a part of...):

bird's foot (the foot of a bird)

 Context examples 

The fingers were curved like talons, but they closed on empty air.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Solitude would be no solitude—rest no rest—while the vulture, hunger, thus sank beak and talons in my side.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Ah, Bill, Bill, we have seen a sight of times, us two, since I lost them two talons, holding up his mutilated hand.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The paw, with rigid claws curving like talons, shot under the tender belly and came back with a swift ripping movement.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

The fierceness of this creature’s countenance altogether discomposed me; though I stood at the farther end of the table, above fifty feet off; and although my mistress held her fast, for fear she might give a spring, and seize me in her talons.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

They were hard as iron. And I observed, also, that his whole body had unconsciously drawn itself together, tense and alert; that muscles were softly crawling and shaping about the hips, along the back, and across the shoulders; that the arms were slightly lifted, their muscles contracting, the fingers crooking till the hands were like talons; and that even the eyes had changed expression and into them were coming watchfulness and measurement and a light none other than of battle.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

It was about studies and lessons, dealing with the rudiments of knowledge, and the schoolboyish tone of it conflicted with the big things that were stirring in him—with the grip upon life that was even then crooking his fingers like eagle's talons, with the cosmic thrills that made him ache, and with the inchoate consciousness of mastery of it all.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Once a kite, hovering over the garden, made a stoop at me, and if I had not resolutely drawn my hanger, and run under a thick espalier, he would have certainly carried me away in his talons.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

But the cub saw, and it was a warning and a lesson to him—the swift downward swoop of the hawk, the short skim of its body just above the ground, the strike of its talons in the body of the ptarmigan, the ptarmigan's squawk of agony and fright, and the hawk's rush upward into the blue, carrying the ptarmigan away with it

(White Fang, by Jack London)