show one's claws

present singular third person shows one's claws · participle present showing one's claws · past showed one's claws · participle past shown one's claws

1. To demonstrate one's ability to hurt another.

   But when Louis showed his claws, Lothar knew he meant business.

   2014, Janet L. Nelson, Charles The Bald, page xiv

   2 more examples

   In this event he really showed his claws by winning ten games, drawing four while losing four.

   1949, Chess Review - Volume 17, page 7

   Perhaps if I'd been dressed in conventional clothes and carried a suitcase they would have been more sure of themselves, but right up until the time that I reached my final destination, a transit camp outside Liverpool, I was handled with kid gloves, as if they suspected my present tractability were transient and that if they made a false move I would show my claws.

   2013, Gwen Moffat, Space Below My Feet

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see show, claw.