# ketch
## English
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /kɛt͡ʃ/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
   * Rhymes: -ɛtʃ
* Homophone: catch (some accents, especially US)

### Etymology 1

From Middle English catche, from cacchen (“to catch”). For the modern form with /ɛ/, compare the pronunciation /kɛtʃ/ of catch.

#### Noun

ketch (plural ketches)
* A fore-and-aft rigged sailing vessel with two masts, main and mizzen, the mizzen being stepped forward of the rudder post.
** 1720, Daniel Defoe, Captain Singleton‎, London: J. Brotherton et al, page 313:[…] to finish her new Habit or Appearance, and make her Change compleat, he ordered her Sails to be alter’d; and as she sailed before with a Half-Sprit, like a Yacht, she sailed now with square Sail and Mizen Mast, like a Ketch; so that, in a Word, she was a perfect Cheat […]

##### Derived terms

* bomb ketch

##### Descendants

* → Dutch: kits

##### See also

* yawl

##### Further reading

* ketch on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

### Etymology 2

See catch.

#### Verb

ketch (third-person singular simple present ketches, present participle ketching, simple past and past participle ketched)
* Pronunciation spelling of catch.
** 1815, D. HUMPHREYS, Yankey in England, I. 21:I guess, he is trying to ketch mebut it won't du. I'm tu old a bird to be ketch'd with chaff.
** 1864 May – 1865 November, Charles Dickens, chapter XV, in Our Mutual Friend. […], volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1865, →OCLC, book the fourth (A Turning), page 287:Wot is it, lambs, as they ketches in seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds?
** 1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXXV, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 270:[…] I got to go to church and sweat and sweat—I hate them ornery sermons! I can’t ketch a fly in there, I can’t chaw, I got to wear shoes all Sunday.
** 1911 October, Edith Wharton, chapter II, in Ethan Frome (The Scribner Library; SL8), New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 60:You'll ketch your death. The fire's out long ago.
** 1916, W. O. BRADLEY, Stories & Speeches, section 18:You'll never ketch me hollerin' at no Republican gatherin'.
** 1929, H. W. ODUM, in A. Dundes Mother Wit (1973), page 184
    If so you gonna ketch hell.
** 1967 Apr, Atlantic Monthly, 103/1:You heard about that joke a dollar down and a dollar when you ketch me?
** 1968 S. STUCKEY, in A. Chapman, New Black Voices (1972), page 445
    Run, nigger, run, de patrollers will ketch you.

### Etymology 3

From Jack Ketch, a hangman of the 17th century.

#### Verb

ketch (third-person singular simple present ketches, present participle ketching, simple past and past participle ketched)
* (rare) To hang.
    Synonyms: Guy Fawkes, stretch, string up; see also Thesaurus:kill by hanging
** 1681, T. FLATMAN Heraclitus Ridens No. 14
    'Squire Ketch rejoices as much to hear of a new Vox, as an old Sexton does to hear of a new Delight.
** n.d., Ibid;;. No. 18
    Well! If he has a mind to be Ketch'd, speed him say I.
** 1840, Fraser's Mag., number XXI, page 210:Ignorant of many of the secrets of ketchcraft.
** 1859, MATSELL Vocab. s.v. (Farmer),
    I'll ketch you; I'll hang you.

#### Noun

ketch (plural ketches)
* A hangman.

## French
### Noun

ketch m (plural ketchs)
* ketch (boat)

### Further reading

* “ketch”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.