ketch

plural ketches

1. A fore-and-aft rigged sailing vessel with two masts, main and mizzen, the mizzen being stepped forward of the rudder post.

   […] to finish her new Habit or Appearance, and make her Change compleat, he ordered her Sails to be alter’d; and as she sailed before with a Half-Sprit, like a Yacht, she sailed now with square Sail and Mizen Mast, like a Ketch; so that, in a Word, she was a perfect Cheat […]

   1720, Daniel Defoe, Captain Singleton, London: J. Brotherton et al, page 313

present singular third person ketches · participle present ketching · participle past ketched · past ketched

1. pronunciation spellingPronunciation spelling of catch.

   If so you gonna ketch hell.

   1929, H. W. ODUM, in A. Dundes Mother Wit (1973), page 184

   5 more examples

   I guess, he is trying to ketch mebut it won't du. I'm tu old a bird to be ketch'd with chaff.

   1815, D. HUMPHREYS, Yankey in England, I. 21

   Wot is it, lambs, as they ketches in seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds?

   1864 May – 1865 November, Charles Dickens, chapter XV, in Our Mutual Friend. […], volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1865, →OCLC, 4th book (A Turning), page 287

   […] I got to go to church and sweat and sweat—I hate them ornery sermons! I can’t ketch a fly in there, I can’t chaw, I got to wear shoes all Sunday.

   1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXXV, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 270

   You'll ketch your death. The fire's out long ago.

   1911 October, Edith Wharton, chapter II, in Ethan Frome (The Scribner Library; SL8), New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 60

   You'll never ketch me hollerin' at no Republican gatherin'.

   1916, W. O. BRADLEY, Stories & Speeches, section 18

present singular third person ketches · participle present ketching · participle past ketched · past ketched

1. rareTo hang.

   1859, MATSELL Vocab. s.v. (Farmer), I'll ketch you; I'll hang you.

   1 more example

   Well! If he has a mind to be Ketch'd, speed him say I.

   n.d., Ibid;;. No. 18

   Synonyms: Guy Fawkes, stretch, string up, forhang, Guy Fawkes, hang, send to the scaffold, scrag

plural ketches

1. A hangman.

   Ignorant of many of the secrets of ketchcraft.

   [1840, Fraser's Mag., number XXI, page 210

   1 more example

   'Squire Ketch rejoices as much to hear of a new Vox, as an old Sexton does to hear of a new Delight.

   1681, T. FLATMAN Heraclitus Ridens No. 14

plural ketches

1. UKdialectalA pie or turnover.

plural Ketches

1. Synonym of Jack Ketch (“a public executioner”).

   Hanging was indeed the popular remedy for all criminal disorders. The legislator found patients for it, the judge prescribed it, and the Ketch administered it with the same callous and gallows indifference.

   1882, Thomas Hood, The Works of Thomas Hood, Comic and Serious, page 288

   Synonyms: Jack Ketch