caught

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past tense and past participle of catch.

   The goalkeeper caught the ball just before it crossed the line.

   He has caught a cold and stayed home from work.

   Note

   One irregular form does double duty. It stands alone as the simple past (she caught the train), and it follows have or be in perfect and passive constructions (he was caught lying). Every sense of catch carries through unchanged: capturing, tripping someone up, landing a blow, arriving in time, and discovering someone in the act. Even the dated sense of winning a spouse carries through, as in caught a husband.

2. 2
   adjective

   In cricket, describing a dismissal in which the striker hits the ball and a fielder catches it before it touches the ground.

   The captain was caught at slip, ending a long partnership.

   Three batsmen were caught in the deep as they tried to force the pace.

   Note

   Cricket turns a past participle into the name of a way a batsman's innings ends, so it behaves like an adjective rather than the ordinary past form of catch. It is not comparable: a batsman cannot be more or less caught. The scorebook credits both the catching fielder and the bowler, and the word is usually followed by where the catch was taken, as in caught at slip or caught in the deep.

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