catching

The action of the verb catch.

Adjective

  1. Infectious, contagious.
    • Ah, who is this? You did not hear me, my young friend, did you? Why, you, too, look sad. My melancholy is not catching! - 1857, Herman Melville, chapter V, in The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade:
  2. Captivating; alluring; catchy.
    • Bomb guy looked her up and down, not because he was an attractive man and she was possibly a catching woman. - 2013, R. T. Wolfe, Dark Vengeance:

Forms

more catching most catching

Synonyms

taking

Hyponyms

eye-catching

Noun

  1. The action of the verb catch.
    • Though catchings of the breath and occasional syncope appear in the more early stages, yet they only become considerable and dangerous in the later[…] - 1819, Bartholomew Parr, The London Medical Dictionary:

Forms

catchings

Verb

  1. present participle and gerund of catch

Derived

birdcatching catchingly catchingness flycatching man-catching molecatching ratcatching slavecatching spycatching