catching

• IPA^(key): /ˈkæt͡ʃɪŋ/, /ˈkɛt͡ʃɪŋ/

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• Rhymes: -æt͡ʃɪŋ, -ɛt͡ʃɪŋ
• Hyphenation: catch‧ing

catching (comparative more catching, superlative most catching)

1. (informal) Infectious, contagious.
   • 1857, Herman Melville, chapter V, in The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade:

     Ah, who is this? You did not hear me, my young friend, did you? Why, you, too, look sad. My melancholy is not catching!

2. Captivating; alluring; catchy.
   • 2013, R. T. Wolfe, Dark Vengeance:

     Bomb guy looked her up and down, not because he was an attractive man and she was possibly a catching woman.

• eye-catching

catching (countable and uncountable, plural catchings)

1. The action of the verb catch.
   • 1819, Bartholomew Parr, The London Medical Dictionary:

     Though catchings of the breath and occasional syncope appear in the more early stages, yet they only become considerable and dangerous in the later […]

catching

1. present participle and gerund of catch