catch sight of

verb

"catch-sight-of" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“catch sight of” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
14
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - to see for a brief period; to get a glimpse of

Corpus desk

Index EN-catch-sight-of · catch sight of · English

catch sight of · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 14 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "C" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for catch sight of
PropertyValue
Headwordcatch sight of
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters14
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “catch sight of” in English

catch sight offalls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

catch sight of is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "to see for a brief period; to get a glimpse of".

No misspelling variants are generated for catch sight of in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct English form is catch sight of, spelled C-A-T-C-H- -S-I-G-H-T- -O-F.

Definition

  1. 1
    to see for a brief period; to get a glimpse of

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how catch sight of appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Di Matteo clearly saw Drogba's power as a potential threat to a Barcelona defence stripped of Gerard Pique - but he barely caught sight of goal in a first 45 minutes in which the Catalans exerted their technical superiority.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "catch sight of"?
"catch sight of" is spelled C-A-T-C-H- -S-I-G-H-T- -O-F.
What does "catch sight of" mean?
As a verb, "catch sight of" means: to see for a brief period; to get a glimpse of
What language does "catch sight of" come from?
"catch sight of" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list