crow's foot

See also: crowsfoot and crow's-foot

English

The crow's-foot notation indicates that an author can write several books, and a book can be written by several authors.

Alternative forms

• crow's-foot, crowsfoot

Etymology

From Middle English crowes feet pl.

Noun

crow's foot (plural crow's feet or crows' feet)

1. (usually in the plural) A small wrinkle in the corner of an eye, emblematic of aging.
   • 1814 July, [Jane Austen], chapter XV, in Mansfield Park: […], volume I, London: […] T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, pages 305–306:

     You must get a brown gown, and a white apron, and a mob cap, and we must make you a few wrinkles, and a little of the crowsfoot at the corner of your eyes, and you will be a very proper, little old woman.

   • 2013 September 11, Kim Painter, “New wrinkle: Botox approved to treat crow's feet”, in USA Today‎^[1]:

     The Food and Drug Administration says it's an effective temporary treatment for crow's feet, the wrinkles that form next to aging eyes.

2. (sewing) A triangular embroidery stitch.
3. (databases) A symbol, resembling a bisected equilateral triangle, used in database diagrams to indicate plurality.
   • 1999, Robert J Muller, Database Design for Smarties:

     The crow's-foot notation similarly represents relationships.

   • 2007, Geoff Coffey, Susan Prosser, Filemaker Pro 9: The Missing Manual:

     Each crow's foot in your ER diagram indicates the need for a foreign key.

4. A number of lines rove through a long wooden block, supporting the backbone of an awning horizontally.
5. A caltrop.
6. A device for supporting a tripod to prevent the legs from slipping.
   • 1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, When the World Screamed‎^[2]:

     My foreman with his faked assistant had littered the place with all my apparatus, my bellbox, my crowsfoot, the V-drills, the rods, and the weight, but Malone insisted that we disregard all that and descend ourselves to the lowest level.

7. Certain flowering plants
   1. especially, in genus Ranunculus

Anagrams

• crowfoots