Word.ws English Dictionary

catch one's death

catch one's death verb: to contract a serious illness, especially a nasty cold or other respiratory ailment and especially as a result of exposure to wet or chilly weather.

Verb

catch one's death (third-person singular simple present catches one's death, present participle catching one's death, simple past and past participle caught one's death)

  1. (idiomatic) To contract a serious illness, especially a nasty cold or other respiratory ailment and especially as a result of exposure to wet or chilly weather.
    • "You'll get drenched to the skin—You'll catch your death!" said Peechy Prauw, affectionately.1824, Washington Irving, “The Adventure of Sam, the Black Fisherman”, in Tales of a Traveller
    • "My eye as like! you don't think I'm such a fool as to catch my death of cold, and let the horses catch their death too."1848, Elizabeth Gaskell, chapter 6, in Mary Barton

Forms of catch one's death

third-person singular presentcatches one's death
present participlecatching one's death
past participlecaught one's death
pastcaught one's death

Words formed from catch one's death

  • catch one's death of cold

Questions about catch one's death

What does catch one's death mean?
Catch one's death means to contract a serious illness, especially a nasty cold or other respiratory ailment and especially as a result of exposure to wet or chilly weather.
What part of speech is catch one's death?
Catch one's death is a verb.
What is the past tense of catch one's death?
The past tense of catch one's death is caught one's death.

Words near catch one's death in the dictionary

  1. catch no balls
  2. catch of the day
  3. catch on
  4. catch on fire
  5. catch one's breath
  6. catch one's death
  7. catch oneself on
  8. catch out
  9. catch phrase
  10. catch phrases
  11. catch pit

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: catch one's death (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.

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

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