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Catch   /kætʃ/   Listen
verb
Catch  v. t.  (past & past part. caught; pres. part. catching; catched is rarely used)  
1.
To lay hold on; to seize, especially with the hand; to grasp (anything) in motion, with the effect of holding; as, to catch a ball.
2.
To seize after pursuing; to arrest; as, to catch a thief. "They pursued... and caught him."
3.
To take captive, as in a snare or net, or on a hook; as, to catch a bird or fish.
4.
Hence: To insnare; to entangle. "To catch him in his words".
5.
To seize with the senses or the mind; to apprehend; as, to catch a melody. "Fiery thoughts... whereof I catch the issue."
6.
To communicate to; to fasten upon; as, the fire caught the adjoining building.
7.
To engage and attach; to please; to charm. "The soothing arts that catch the fair."
8.
To get possession of; to attain. "Torment myself to catch the English throne."
9.
To take or receive; esp. to take by sympathy, contagion, infection, or exposure; as, to catch the spirit of an occasion; to catch the measles or smallpox; to catch cold; the house caught fire.
10.
To come upon unexpectedly or by surprise; to find; as, to catch one in the act of stealing.
11.
To reach in time; to come up with; as, to catch a train.
To catch fire, to become inflamed or ignited.
to catch it to get a scolding or beating; to suffer punishment. (Colloq.)
To catch one's eye, to interrupt captiously while speaking. (Colloq.) "You catch me up so very short."
To catch up, to snatch; to take up suddenly.


Catch  v. i.  (past & past part. caught; pres. part. catching; catched is rarely used)  
1.
To attain possession. (Obs.) "Have is have, however men do catch."
2.
To be held or impeded by entanglement or a light obstruction; as, a kite catches in a tree; a door catches so as not to open.
3.
To take hold; as, the bolt does not catch.
4.
To spread by, or as by, infecting; to communicate. "Does the sedition catch from man to man?"
To catch at, to attempt to seize; to be eager to get or use. "(To) catch at all opportunities of subverting the state."
To catch up with, to come up with; to overtake.


noun
Catch  n.  
1.
Act of seizing; a grasp.
2.
That by which anything is caught or temporarily fastened; as, the catch of a gate.
3.
The posture of seizing; a state of preparation to lay hold of, or of watching he opportunity to seize; as, to lie on the catch. (Archaic) "The common and the canon law... lie at catch, and wait advantages one againt another."
4.
That which is caught or taken; profit; gain; especially, the whole quantity caught or taken at one time; as, a good catch of fish. "Hector shall have a great catch if he knock out either of your brains."
5.
Something desirable to be caught, esp. a husband or wife in matrimony. (Colloq.)
6.
pl. Passing opportunities seized; snatches. "It has been writ by catches with many intervals."
7.
A slight remembrance; a trace. "We retain a catch of those pretty stories."
8.
(Mus.) A humorous canon or round, so contrived that the singers catch up each other's words.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Catch" Quotes from Famous Books



... years in gaol at the end of this job for everybody," said Shaw, "and I have a boy that don't know his father yet. Fine things for him to learn when he grows up. The innocent are dead certain here to catch it along with you. The missus will break her heart unless she starves first. Home ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... and I'm glad enough he should be sure of Heaven, but saving your presence, I want him here on earth. It's hard work for a lone woman to bring up four children, never name boys, that's as rampageous as young colts, and about as easy to catch. And the younger and sillier they are, the surer they are to think they know better ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... shall meet. Moreover it is almost necessary in Africa to pass as traders. The people perfectly understand that white men come here to trade; but if we said that our object was to shoot birds and beasts, and to catch butterflies and insects, they would not believe us in the slightest degree, but would suspect us of all sorts of hidden designs. Now we will go ashore and pay our respects to ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... years she could be seen almost daily on the foreshore with a little group of weather-beaten men around her. She knew the dangers and disappointments of their calling, and was genuinely delighted whenever she heard that the fleet had returned with a good catch. And when the boats were out and a storm sprang up, she was anxious as any fish-wife for their safety. At her own expense she provided a lifeboat and complete apparatus for saving life, and, with the thoroughness characteristic of her, she made herself ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... shadow of interest in the great questions he treats, and every page displays a style which is the rarest of literary gifts. The very fact that his writing is untinted by those lesser beauties which catch the eye but to impede its deepest glances, is in itself an excellence all the greater in proportion to the gravity of his topics. Absolutely free from the least obscurity, his diction is a magnetic medium uniting the master's personality, the disciple's understanding, ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott


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