Catching

How to spell catching

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce catching

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does catching mean?

1. verbThe act of seizing, intercepting, or managing to reach something or someone.
2. adjectiveTending to spread quickly from one person to another, such as a mood, habit, or illness.

Catching in a sentence

• verb

  Catching the early train meant leaving the house before dawn.

• adjective

  His enthusiasm in meetings was so catching that the whole team felt motivated.

• verb

  The goalkeeper was excellent at catching high balls in the rain.

• adjective

  The chorus of the song proved remarkably catching on the first listen.

Where does catching come from?

Language of origin: French

The base verb 'catch' came into English in the early 1200s from the Old North French 'cachier', meaning 'to capture, seize, or chase', which descended from the Latin 'captiare', a later form of 'captare', meaning 'to try to seize' or 'to grasp eagerly'. That Latin verb was itself built on 'capere', meaning 'to take', the same root that lies behind 'capture', 'captive', and 'capable'. The '-ing' ending is the native English suffix used to form both the present participle and the gerund, so 'catching' simply means the act or state of catching. Over time the word also developed the adjectival sense of 'spreading easily' (as a disease or a mood does), since something contagious is metaphorically 'caught' from one person by another. The 'tch' spelling preserves the historic hard ending of 'catch', which is why writers must remember the silent grouping rather than a single 'ch'.

How the word is built

• catch (to seize, grasp)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)