Caught
/kɔːt/noun
Past tense and past participle of catch, meaning seized, captured, or trapped.
Did you know?Caught comes from a long line of Germanic words for seizing with the hand, not from any mystical source, but it later became part of the language of being trapped—physically, socially, and even by fate.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*kap-
“to seize, grasp”
Proto-Germanic
PGmc
*kaptjaną
“to seize, catch”
Old English
OE
ceahte / cæhte
“caught, seized”
Middle English
ME
cauȝt / cawt
“caught, seized”
Modern English
English
caught
“past tense and past participle of catch”