Word.ws English Dictionary

caught one's breath

caught one's breath is the simple past and past participle of catch one's breath.

Meaning of catch one's breath

Verb

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

  1. to take a break, or rest while doing a strenuous activity, so that one's breathing becomes easier
    • They stood for a moment at the end of the set to catch their breath before resuming play.
  2. to take in a breath sharply and hold it, usually in reaction to a sudden shock, or surprise
    • John caught his breath when he saw the bottle rolling unstoppably towards the opposite edge of the table.

Questions about caught one's breath

What is caught one's breath the simple past and past participle of?
Caught one's breath is the simple past and past participle of catch one's breath.

Words near caught one's breath in the dictionary

  1. caught looking
  2. caught napping
  3. caught on
  4. caught on fire
  5. caught on the hop
  6. caught one's breath
  7. caught one's death
  8. caught one's drift
  9. caught out
  10. caught raiding the cookie jar
  11. caught red-handed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: caught one's breath (page history and authors); catch one's breath (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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Cite this entry: “caught one's breath.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/caught_one%27s_breath. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.