breath-catching

comparative more breath-catching · superlative most breath-catching

1. Inspiring awe or deep admiration; impressive.

   For here was a vista that was breath-catching and inspiring, a wholly new thing come into the world.

   2011, Harry Harrison, Tunnel Through the Deeps, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   The theory was breath-catching, but quickly fell apart when the accountant could give no account of what Sibyl might have done with Theresa's body.

   2004, Mel Bradshaw, Death in the Age of Steam: A Mystery, →ISBN, page 99

   Donal Henahan reported that her performance of it was “breath-catching in its vocal warmth and emotional power.”

   2010, James Neufeld, Lois Marshall: A Biography, →ISBN, page 239

2. Extremely frightening or overwhelming.

   He was moving towards her with a purposefully predatory stride, stopping only when he was breath-catching inches away from her.

   2014, Elizabeth Power, Back in the Lion's Den, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   To cap the feat, their leader made a breath-catching descent by what mountain men call a rappel, riding down a rope almost 400 feet.

   1964 June 5, “Now Man Conquers Mt. Eiffel”, in Life, volume 56, number 23, page 106

   I asked whether he would mind if I looked through them, and after a few minutes I found the map: it was a breath-catching moment for, as I unfolded it, I saw that it must show the deployment of a whole searchlight regiment covering the entire southern half of Belgium.

   2009, R.V. Jones, Most Secret War, →ISBN

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see breath, catching.