Word.ws English Dictionary

catching napping

catching napping is the present participle and gerund of catch napping.

Meaning of catch napping

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

Questions about catching napping

What is catching napping the present participle and gerund of?
Catching napping is the present participle and gerund of catch napping.

Words near catching napping in the dictionary

  1. catching in 4k
  2. catching in possession
  3. catching it
  4. catching it in the neck
  5. catching lacking
  6. catching napping
  7. catching on
  8. catching on fire
  9. catching one's breath
  10. catching one's death
  11. catching one's drift

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: catching napping (page history and authors); 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.

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