cat's cradle
Preserved but no longer current.
A game played with a piece of twine by two children. The suggestion that the name is a corruption of cratch-cradle, or the manger cradle m which the infant Saviour was laid (cratch is the Fr. creche, a rack or manger), is unsupported by any evidence.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “cat's cradle” mean?
A game played with a piece of twine by two children. The suggestion that the name is a corruption of cratch-cradle, or the manger cradle m which the infant Saviour was laid (cratch is the Fr. creche, a rack or manger), is unsupported by any evidence.
Is “cat's cradle” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.