catchweight

catchweight adverb: without any weight restrictions; without being handicapped.

Adverb

catchweight (not comparable)

Without any weight restrictions; without being handicapped.
- They'll break from the gate in full tack with jockeys riding catchweight in silks.1976 December 3, “Oldtimers race is well received”, in El Paso Herald-Post
- to ride catchweight

Adjective

catchweight (not comparable)

Without any weight restrictions; having no handicap.
- There were also races for gentlemen-riders, in whch all the best performers of the day took part. Lord Glamis, afterwards Earl of Strathmore, rode his maiden race there—a catchweight match with Sir Watkin Wynn, a rare bit of fun got up by the officers of the 1st Life Guards.1874, Baily's Magazine of Sports and Pastimes - Volume 25, page 225
- And— He reached the paddock and took up an unobtrusive position at the rail to watch the first race for which a mounted Police bugler had just sounded the “Boot and Saddle.” It was a catchweight sprint for local farmers' ponies.1934, Ridgwell Cullum, The Flaming Wilderness, page 265
Having no standard weight, but rather having weight determined when packaged for sale or shipping.
- It is regular practice to furnish wire in catchweight coils.1962, United States National Bureau of Standards, Simplified Practice Recommendation, page 50
- The scaler looks at the order ticket and selects a shipping container or containers of proper size to hold the catchweight items or those of 12 pounds or less. The catchweight items are weighed, marked, and placed in the containers.1966, Donald S. MacKenzie, Prepared Meat Product Manufacturing, page 92

Noun

catchweight (countable and uncountable, plural catchweights)

A weight category other than the standard weight categories: either an agreed-upon weight range or an agreement to allow any weight.
- There was an especially good entry, thirty-nine horses, representing twenty-two regiments, being entered in the Light Weight race, which was for horses five years old and upwards, the property of oflicers on full or half pay of the Regular Army, that had not won a race under the recognised rules of...1908, Cavalry Journal - Volume 3, page 266
- The fatal difference 'twixt his weight and mine, A second battle should he do this day : Nay, though outmatched I be, let but my mistress Give me the word: instant I'll take him on Here — now — at catchweight.1911, Archibald Henderson, George Bernard Shaw His Life and Works, page 76
The weight of an item that is not set to a standard, but which varies around an approximate value.
- Catchweights over 300 pounds would be about the correctest figure to give for ladies of the royal family ; and the women-folk generally are big-faced and big-bodied, though not especially large-limbed.1892, C. R. Sail, Farthest East, and South and West
- A number of trial fillings and catchweights may be necessary to obtain the desired degree of accuracy.1930, John Quayle Cannon, Standards and Specifications for Nonmetallic Minerals and Their Products
The weight of all the fish caught.
- At the end of two hours, the first seventeen anglers up the line from me had taken a total of only three legal fish, which suggested I wasn't ... Carr told me the quantitative specialist wins an occasional match with the biggest total catchweight.1977, Robert G. Deindorfer, The incompleat angler: fishing Izaak Walton's favorite rivers, page 58
- Catchweight seems to me to be a far more reasonable measure of impact than days at sea, even though the general impact of high levels of human activity should also be brought into the calculations.2003, Australia. Parliament House of Representatives, Parliamentary Debates (Hansard).: Senate, page 9684

Examples of catchweight in a sentence

In a “catchweight" race, no horse is required to carry a specific weight.1977, M. Eugene Ensminger, The Complete Encyclopedia of Horses, page 102:
If pressed he would call these catchweight fights, but they were really just demolition without a weigh-in or any formality beyond money changing hands.2011, Sam Hawken, The Dead Women of Juárez, →ISBN:
At the time he took the pub on, Peter, aged twenty-five, was a catchweight wrestler.2014, Mervyn Edwards, Stoke on Trent Pubs, →ISBN:
The Department's main priorities have been goods sold loose — apples or herrings, to take two incompatible examples— and what are known as "catchweight" items.1977, Great Britain Parliament House of Lords, The Parliamentary Debates (Hansard).: House of Lords official report:

Forms of catchweight

plural	catchweights

Questions about catchweight

What does catchweight mean?: Catchweight means without any weight restrictions; without being handicapped.
How do you use catchweight in a sentence?: In a “catchweight" race, no horse is required to carry a specific weight.
What part of speech is catchweight?: Catchweight can be an adverb, an adjective or a noun.

Words near catchweight in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: catchweight (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: 2026-09-02

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