cat-and-mouse

cat-and-mouse

(kăt′n-mous′)

adj.

1. Playfully or teasingly cruel, as in prolonging the pain or torment of another: the cat-and-mouse tactics of the interrogators.

2. Of or involving a suspenseful and sometimes alternating relation between hunter and hunted: "another cat-and-mouse thriller" (New York Times).

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

cat-and-mouse

adj

denoting a fight or contest in which participants attempt to confuse or deceive each other in a cruel or teasing way, esp before a final act of cruelty or unkindness

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

Translations

cat-and-mouse

adj to play cat-and-mouse or a cat-and-mouse game with somebody → mit jdm Katz und Maus spielen

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

cat-and-mouse

[ˈkætˌəndˈmaus] adj to play a cat-and-mouse game with sb → giocare al gatto e al topo con qn

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995