Catched or Caught? (Which is the Right Word?)

August 6, 2025

5 min read

By Yash, D

The verb catch has two forms, to catch, and caught, which is both the past tense and participle form of catch.

Catched or Caught? (Which is the Right Word?)

What’s the past tense of “catch”?

The verb catch is irregular, but its conjugations are familiar in English. Similar to buy/bought, seek/sought, the only past form of catch is caught.

👍🏼Examples

Simple past: My computer caught a virus.

Present perfect: I’ve caught a nasty cold and am stuck in bed.

Incorrect: She catched the ball during the game.

	Present	Past	Future
Simple	I catch	I caught	I will catch
Continuous	I am catching	I was catching	I will be catching
Perfect	I have caught	I had caught	I will have caught
Perfect Continuous	I have been catching	I had been catching	I will have been catching

Here’s a helpful chart that illustrates irregular verbs forms with one past tense conjugation, like catch/caught. Likewise, many of these verbs use the -ough construct as a plural.

Present	Past	Past Participle
teach	taught	taught
buy	bought	bought
bring	brought	brought
catch	caught	caught
seek	sought	sought

“Catch” / “caught”, used in sentences

Word	Sentences
catch	She managed to catch the keys as they fell. ‘Throw me over that towel, will you?’ ‘OK. Catch!’ The roof was leaking and I had to use a bucket to catch the drips. How many fish did you catch?
caught	I threw the bag in the air and she caught it. You’ve caught me at a bad time. The dog caught the stick in its mouth. I think I must have caught this cold from you.

Word

Sentences

catch

She managed to catch the keys as they fell.

‘Throw me over that towel, will you?’ ‘OK. Catch!’

The roof was leaking and I had to use a bucket to catch the drips.

How many fish did you catch?

caught

I threw the bag in the air and she caught it.

You’ve caught me at a bad time.

The dog caught the stick in its mouth.

I think I must have caught this cold from you.

💡Study Tip

Think of “catch” as an irregular verb like “teach”; its past tense “caught” rhymes with “taught” and ends in “-aught.”.

Synonyms of catch

grab
snag
get
seize
capture
trap
see
grasp

Origin of the word catch

From Latin captare “to take, hold,” frequentative of capere “to take, hold”.

Practice: “Catch” conjugations

FAQs

What is the past tense of “catch”?
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The correct simple past tense of the verb “catch” is “caught”. The post provides examples like “He caught the ball with one hand” and “We caught the 12.15 from Oxford.”

Is “catched” the past tense of “catch”?
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No, the post explicitly states that “catched” is an incorrect past tense form of “catch”. It uses the example “She catched a cold last week” to show this error.

What is the past participle of “catch”?
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The post shows that the past participle of “catch” is also “caught”. It is used in perfect tenses, such as in “They have caught a glimpse of the rare bird.”

How is “caught” used in simple past?
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The post uses “caught” as the simple past form for completed actions, like in “He caught the ball with one hand.” Another example is “I threw the bag in the air and she caught it.”

Is “catched” used as past participle?
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No, according to the post, “catched” is an incorrect form for the past participle. The correct past participle used in perfect tenses, like “have caught” or “had caught”, is “caught”.

Sources

‍ Etymology online, origin of catch. Definition of catch. ‍

Yash, D. "Catched or Caught? (Which is the Right Word?)." Grammarflex, Aug 24, 2025, https://grammarflex.com/catched-or-caught/.

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