catch
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "catch", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "catch" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "catch" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
catch is aEnglishnoun. It means: The act of seizing or capturing. Pronounced /kat͡ʃ/. It ranks #1,418 in English word frequency. Often confused with CTC and cats.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | catch |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /kat͡ʃ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,418 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for catch is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kat͡ʃ/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,418 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 22 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for catch, with forms such as "actch", "cacth", and "catcch". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "CTC", "cats", "cate", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *kap- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *kapyéti Proto-Indo-European *kaptós Proto-Italic *kaptos Vulgar Latin captus Proto-Indo-European *-yetider. Vulgar Latin -io Vulgar Latin *captiāre Old French chacierbo… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is catch, spelled C-A-T-C-H, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The act of seizing or capturing.
- 2The act of catching an object in motion, especially a ball.
- 3The act of noticing, understanding or hearing.
- 4The game of catching a ball.
- 5Something which is captured or caught.
- 6A find, in particular a boyfriend or girlfriend or prospective spouse.
- 7A stopping mechanism, especially a clasp which stops something from opening.
- 8A hesitation in voice, caused by strong emotion.
- 9A concealed difficulty, especially in a deal or negotiation.
- 10A crick; a sudden muscle pain during unaccustomed positioning when the muscle is in use.
- 11A fragment of music or poetry.
- 12A state of readiness to capture or seize; an ambush.
- 13A crop which has germinated and begun to grow.
- 14A type of strong boat, usually having two masts; a ketch.
- 15A type of humorous round in which the voices gradually catch up with one another; usually sung by men and often having bawdy lyrics.
- 16The refrain; a line or lines of a song which are repeated from verse to verse.
- 17The act of catching a hit ball before it reaches the ground, resulting in an out.
- 18A player in respect of his catching ability; particularly one who catches well.
- 19The first contact of an oar with the water.
- 20A stoppage of breath, resembling a slight cough.
- 21Passing opportunities seized; snatches.
- 22A slight remembrance; a trace.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *kap- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *kapyéti Proto-Indo-European *kaptós Proto-Italic *kaptos Vulgar Latin captus Proto-Indo-European *-yetider. Vulgar Latin -io Vulgar Latin *captiāre Old French chacierbor. Anglo-Norman cachierbor. Middle English cacchen English catch From Middle English cacchen, from Anglo-Norman cachier, variant of Old French chacier, from Late Latin captiāre, from Latin captāre, frequentative of capere. Akin to Modern French chasser (from Old French chacier) and Spanish cazar, and thus a doublet of chase. Compare ketch. Via PIE cognate with have. Displaced Middle English fangen ("to catch"; > Modern English fang (verb)), from Old English fōn (“to seize, take”); Middle English lacchen ("to catch" and heavily displaced Modern English latch), from Old English læċċan. The verb became irregular, possibly under the influence of the semantically similar latch (from Old English læċċan), whose past tense was lahte, lauhte, laught (Old English læhte), until becoming regularised in Modern English.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: actch,cacth,catcch,catchh,cathc,cattch,ccatch,ctach
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for catch
Misspelling Variants of "catch"
Frequency rank: #1,418 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: