Catch

How to spell catch

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce catch

What does catch mean?

1. verbTo intercept and hold something moving, or to capture a person, animal, or thing.
2. nounA hidden disadvantage or condition that makes an otherwise good offer less attractive.

Catch in a sentence

• verb

  The goalkeeper had to catch the ball before it crossed the line.

• noun

  The deal sounded perfect, but there was a catch buried in the fine print.

• verb

  Police hoped to catch the thief before he left the country.

• noun

  A free upgrade with no catch seemed too good to be true.

Where does catch come from?

Language of origin: French

The word comes from the Old North French cachier, meaning 'to chase' or 'to capture', which itself descends from the Vulgar Latin captiare, a reworking of the Latin captare, meaning 'to try to seize' or 'to grasp at'. That verb was a frequentative of capere, 'to take', so the original sense carried the idea of repeatedly reaching out to grab something. English took the word in during the 1200s, when it still leaned heavily on the meaning of hunting and pursuing prey. Fascinatingly, 'catch' and 'chase' are doublets: they spring from the very same Latin source but entered English through different French dialects, which is why one keeps the hard 'c' sound and the other the soft 'ch'. The modern '-tch' spelling reflects the short vowel before it, a regular English pattern that also gives us 'match', 'patch', and 'fetch'.

How the word is built

• catch (from Old North French cachier, ultimately Latin captare 'to try to seize')