Word.ws English Dictionary

catch wreck

catch wreck verb: to gain respect.

Verb

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

  1. (African-American Vernacular) To gain respect.
    • They said it was some girls and boys from the Perry's who came through and caught wreck with the Downtown boys and they girls.2016, Tamara Ebo, Tears of Purpose

Forms of catch wreck

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

Origin of catch wreck

From catch + recognition where the word recognition is abbreviated and re-spelled according to eye dialect as wreck.

Questions about catch wreck

What does catch wreck mean?
Catch wreck means to gain respect.
What part of speech is catch wreck?
Catch wreck is a verb.
What is the past tense of catch wreck?
The past tense of catch wreck is caught wreck.

Words near catch wreck in the dictionary

  1. catch titles
  2. catch up
  3. catch ups
  4. catch weight
  5. catch wind of
  6. catch wreck
  7. catch you later
  8. catch you on the flip side
  9. catch Z's
  10. catch'd
  11. catch-'em-alive-O

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: catch wreck (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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