catcher

plural catchers

1. Someone or something that catches.
2. ball gamesThe player who squats behind home plate and receives the pitches from the pitcher.

   Finding Dempsey in my mind's eye in January was not quite startling, ...but some other catchers turned up in my hot-stove reveries as well. Bob Boone, for instance.

   1989 February 13, Roger Angell, Season Ticket: A Baseball Companion, Ballantine Books, page 22

   2 more examples

   A “pitchometer” was installed on the scoreboard to time the pitchers. According the baseball rules a pitcher had to throw a pitch within 20 seconds after he received the ball from the catcher when there was nobody on base.

   2003, John E. Peterson, The Kansas City Athletics: A Baseball History: 1954–1967, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, →ISBN, page 210

   At the plate the catcher is responsible for catching pitches, keeping mispitched balls in front of the plate, calling pitches that are normally done through hand signals, picking off runners, and they are considered the leaders of the field.

   2021, University of the District of Columbia, “The plate umpire may suspend play because of darkness”, in Course Hero

3. UScolloquialThe bottom partner in a homosexual relationship or sexual encounter between two men.

   Synonyms: bottom

4. archaicA wrestler.
5. hobbiesThe webbed glove that the goaltender wears on the hand opposite the hand that holds the stick.

   Synonyms: trapper

6. abbreviationShort for mailcatcher (“device for a moving train to pick up mail”)