catching

comparative more catching · superlative most catching

1. informalInfectious, contagious.

   a pessimism that seemed to be catching

   1 more example

   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

plural catchings

1. countableuncountableThe 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

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of catch