Word.ws English Dictionary

catch napping

catch napping verb: to surprise; to take advantage of the lack of watchfulness of.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To surprise; to take advantage of the lack of watchfulness of.
    • Still, a dozen men with rifles, and cartridges to match, stayed behind when they filed through a white aldea lying silent amid the cane, and the Sin Verguenza swung into slightly quicker stride. If the Colonel Morales was to be caught at all he must be caught napping, and, as they knew, he usually...1907 January, Harold Bindloss, chapter 7, in The Dust of Conflict, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: McLeod & Allen, →OCLC
    • The rout started after four minutes when Chelsea were caught napping by Kevin De Bruyne's quick free-kick which left Raheem Sterling to fire in at the far post before Aguero, who had already missed an open goal, curled a magnificent right-foot finish past the stretching Kepa Arrizabalaga from 25...2019 February 10, Phil McNulty, “Manchester City 6-0 Chelsea”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 29 Apr 2021

Forms of catch napping

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

Questions about catch napping

What does catch napping mean?
Catch napping means to surprise; to take advantage of the lack of watchfulness of.
What part of speech is catch napping?
Catch napping is a verb.
What is the past tense of catch napping?
The past tense of catch napping is caught napping.

Words near catch napping in the dictionary

  1. catch in possession
  2. catch it
  3. catch it in the neck
  4. catch lacking
  5. catch me
  6. catch napping
  7. catch no ball
  8. catch no balls
  9. catch of the day
  10. catch on
  11. catch on fire

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: catch napping (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 napping.ogg.

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