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An adjustable catch, bent plate, or hook, for holding together two objects or the parts of anything, as the ends of a belt, the covers of a book, etc.

ristles, which adhere to whatever they come in contact with; -- called also, goose grass, catchweed, etc.

To seize; clutch; snatch; catch; pluck.

A detent, pawl, or ratchet, as that which catches the cogs of a ratchet wheel to prevent backward motion. See Illust. of Ratched wheel.

ributed over several octaves. -- Close time, a fixed period during which killing game or catching certain fish is prohibited by law. -- Close vowel (Pron.), a vowel which is pronounced with a diminished aperture of the lips, or with contraction of the cavity of the mouth. -- Close to the wind (Naut.), directed as ne…

To reach (at something) as if to grasp; to catch or snatch; -- often followed by at. Clutching at the phantoms of the stock market. Bankroft.

The network spread by a spider to catch its prey.

A kind of net to catch woodcock. [Obs.] Nares. Cockshut time or light, evening twilight; nightfall; -- so called in allusion to the tome at which the cockshut used to be spread. [Obs.] Shak. B. Jonson.

A tooth, cam, or catch for imparting or receiving motion, as on a gear wheel, or a lifter or wiper on a shaft; originally, a separate piece of wood set in a mortise in the face of a wheel.

Capable of taking fire and burning; apt to catch fire; inflammable. Sin is to the soul like fire to combustible matter. South.

Communicable by contact, by a virus, or by a bodily exhalation; catching; as, a contagious disease.

[Obs.] It is a most simple animal; whence are derived our usual phrases of cony and cony catcher. Diet's Dry Dinner (1599).

A catch crop planted, esp. in orchards. as a protection to the soil in winter, as well as for the benefit of the soil when plowed under in spring.

ood, a light cabinet wood obtained in Guiana, which takes a high polish. McElrath. -- To catch a crab (Naut.), a phrase used of a rower: (a) when he fails to raise his oar clear of the water; (b) when he misses the water altogether in making a stroke.

One who catches crabs.

The act or art of catching crabs.

to speak; any word or words which serve to remind a player to speak or to do something; a catchword. When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. Shak.

To drop the bait gently on the surface of the water. To catch a club by dapping with a grasshoper. Walton.

one those follies, those mad mischiefs, Would dare a woman. Beau. & Fl. To dare larks, to catch them by producing terror through to use of mirrors, scarlet cloth, a hawk, etc., so that they lie still till a net is thrown over them. Nares.

A net for catching small birds.