The character 爪子 is formed by combining the pictographic character 爪, which visually resembles the splayed toes or talons of an animal's foot or claw, with the common suffix 子. The addition of 子 does not change the core meaning but often conveys a sense of familiarity, smallness, or concrete nominalization, turning the abstract pictograph of a "claw" into the more common, everyday word for a "claw" or "paw" as a tangible object.