ketch

• IPA^(key): /kɛt͡ʃ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛtʃ

• Homophone: catch (some accents, especially US)

From Middle English catche, from cacchen (“to catch”). For the modern form with /ɛ/, compare the pronunciation /kɛtʃ/ of catch.

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.
   • 1720, Daniel Defoe, Captain Singleton‎^[1], London: J. Brotherton et al, page 313:

     […] 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 […]

• bomb ketch

• → Dutch: kits

• yawl

• ketch on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

See catch.

ketch (third-person singular simple present ketches, present participle ketching, simple past and past participle ketched)

1. Pronunciation spelling of catch.
   • 1815, D. HUMPHREYS, Yankey in England, I. 21:

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

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

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

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

     […] 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.

   • 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 ketch your death. The fire's out long ago.

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

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

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

     If so you gonna ketch hell.

   • 1967 Apr, Atlantic Monthly, 103/1:

     You heard about that joke a dollar down and a dollar when you ketch me?

   • 1968 S. STUCKEY, in A. Chapman, New Black Voices (1972), page 445

     Run, nigger, run, de patrollers will ketch you.

From Jack Ketch, a hangman of the 17th century.

ketch (third-person singular simple present ketches, present participle ketching, simple past and past participle ketched)

1. (rare) To hang.

   Synonyms: Guy Fawkes, stretch, string up; see also Thesaurus:kill by hanging

   • 1681, T. FLATMAN Heraclitus Ridens No. 14

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

   • n.d., Ibid;;. No. 18

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

   • 1840, Fraser's Mag., number XXI, page 210:

     Ignorant of many of the secrets of ketchcraft.

   • 1859, MATSELL Vocab. s.v. (Farmer),

     I'll ketch you; I'll hang you.

ketch (plural ketches)

1. A hangman.

ketch m (plural ketchs)

1. ketch (boat)

• “ketch”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.