Word.ws English Dictionary

catch flies

catch flies verb: to have one's mouth wide open for a prolonged period.

Verb

catch flies (third-person singular simple present catches flies, present participle catching flies, simple past and past participle caught flies)

  1. (idiomatic) To have one's mouth wide open for a prolonged period.
    • You'd better close your mouth; are you trying to catch flies?
  2. (informal) Of an actor: to distract the audience by moving or gesturing when the focus should be elsewhere.
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see catch, fly.

Forms of catch flies

third-person singular presentcatches flies
present participlecatching flies
past participlecaught flies
pastcaught flies

Questions about catch flies

What does catch flies mean?
Catch flies means to have one's mouth wide open for a prolonged period.
What part of speech is catch flies?
Catch flies is a verb.
What is the past tense of catch flies?
The past tense of catch flies is caught flies.

Words near catch flies in the dictionary

  1. catch dust
  2. catch feelings
  3. catch fence
  4. catch fences
  5. catch fire
  6. catch flies
  7. catch hands
  8. catch heat
  9. catch hell
  10. catch hold
  11. catch in 4k

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: catch flies (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-catch flies.ogg.

Cite this entry: “catch flies.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/catch_flies. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.