Word.ws English Dictionary

catch someone's drift

catch someone's drift verb: to understand the meaning or implications of someone’s pronouncement.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To understand the meaning or implications of someone’s pronouncement.
    • I see you catch my drift.
    • I caught her drift when she looked at me from across the noisy lunchroom and went over to her table.

Forms of catch someone's drift

third-person singular presentcatches someone's drift
present participlecatching someone's drift
past participlecaught someone's drift
pastcaught someone's drift

Questions about catch someone's drift

What does catch someone's drift mean?
Catch someone's drift means to understand the meaning or implications of someone’s pronouncement.
What part of speech is catch someone's drift?
Catch someone's drift is a verb.
What is the past tense of catch someone's drift?
The past tense of catch someone's drift is caught someone's drift.

Words near catch someone's drift in the dictionary

  1. catch some z's
  2. catch some zs
  3. catch someone at their own game
  4. catch someone napping
  5. catch someone with their pants down
  6. catch someone's drift
  7. catch someone's eye
  8. catch someone's fancy
  9. catch step
  10. catch steps
  11. catch strays

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: catch someone's drift (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 someone's drift.ogg.

Cite this entry: “catch someone's drift.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/catch_someone%27s_drift. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.