catalog

American  

[kat-l-awg, -og] / ˈkæt lˌɔg, -ˌɒg /

Or catalogue

noun

• catalogs
  plural

1. a list or record, as of items for sale or courses at a university, systematically arranged and often including descriptive material.

   a stamp catalog.

   Synonyms:

   record, register, roster

2. something that contains such a list or record, as a book, leaflet, or file.

3. a list of the contents of a library or a group of libraries, arranged according to any of various systems.

   Synonyms:

   record, register, roster

4. any list or record.

   a catalog of complaints.

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verb (used with object)

cataloged, catalogued, cataloging, cataloguing

1. to enter (items) in a catalog; make a catalog of.

verb (used without object)

cataloged, catalogued, cataloging, cataloguing

1. to produce a catalog.

2. to have a specified price as listed in a catalog.

   This model catalogs for $49.95.

3. to offer merchandise in a mail-order catalog.

adjective

1. of, relating to, or carrying on business through a mail-order catalog.

   catalog sales.

Usage

What does catalog mean? A catalog is a list or record of items. It is sometimes spelled catalogue. It commonly refers to a list of things being offered, such as items for sale or courses at a school. The point of such a catalog is typically to arrange the information in an orderly way—often with descriptions—so that the items can be easily found. The word often refers to a printed copy of the list, especially in the context of items available for purchase from a particular company. Catalog can also be used to refer to a collection of works, such as by a particular artist, as in I love every album in her catalog. A card catalog is a file containing information about the books and other materials held in a library. Card catalogs were once commonly physical cabinets of drawers containing cards but now often exist as online catalogs. Sometimes, catalog is used in a very general way as another way of saying list, as in a catalog of complaints. Catalog can also be used as a verb meaning to record items with a list, as in Please catalog all of the new titles. Example: The course catalog lists all of the classes that are available to take.

Synonym Usage

See list ¹.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• cataloger
  noun
• catalogist
  noun
• cataloguer
  noun
• cataloguist
  noun
• miscatalog
  verb (used with object)
• miscatalogue
  verb (used with object)
• recatalog
  verb (used with object)
• catalogic
  adjective
• catalogical
  adjective
• catalogistic
  adjective
• noncatalog
  adjective
• noncatalogue
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• catalogs
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of catalog

First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English cataloge, from Late Latin catalogus, from Greek katálogos “a register” (akin to katalégein “to count up”), equivalent to kata- “down, against, back” + -logos reckoning; see cata-

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Explanation

A catalog is a book that lists many things: the most common type of catalog is for a store. A catalog is an organized list that appears in book or pamphlet form. The Sears catalog tells you all the things you can buy at Sears, along with pictures of the items and what they cost. But you can also use catalog to mean any kind of listing. In an argument, you might say, "Why don't you just make a catalog of all my faults!" When you're making a catalog of any kind, you're cataloging.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

catalog catalogs cataloged cataloging catalogued cataloguing

“Having a big emotional range is important to me — being able to weave in and out of music that feels sarcastic and fun, and then getting really deep,” Nigro said of Devon Again’s catalog.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 2, 2026

The owners of Elvis’ catalog claim that Anthropic used their songs as training data without permission or payment.

From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2026

"The Elvis Plaintiffs' iconic collective catalog contains some of the most groundbreaking, revolutionary, influential, and enduring musical compositions in human history," the case states.

From BBC ● Oct. 26, 2026

Its antenna arrays detect radio signals from celestial objects, allowing scientists to observe and catalog sources across the southern sky.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 12, 2026

Naomi looked up from the catalog Tommie had brought with her.

From "Out of Darkness" by Ashley Hope Pérez

He catalogs these versions of the story with cheeky humor, in a tone that doesn’t line up with his oft-asserted love of all things spooky.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2026

“Retailers that successfully provide product catalogs, inventory feeds, merchant data, store information, reviews and other structured content to AI agents may gain a significant advantage,” the analysts said.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 5, 2026

Now several of them are licensing their catalogs to those same companies, and the deals are starting to turn into products.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 21, 2026

Among them are catalogs covering black holes, stars, and interstellar gas, along with new visualizations and scientific tools designed to help users explore the enormous dataset.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 14, 2026

Mixed in with the usual heap of bills and catalogs was a funny postcard.

From "Flush" by Carl Hiaasen

In Sierra Vista, Ann Nichols, 72 and a Democratic-leaning independent, could scarcely get the words out fast enough as she cataloged her outrage.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 1, 2026

The cataloged facts of her age, place of birth, and marital status suggest the breadth of a life he does not know, and he is seized with the curiosity to find her.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026

The cataloged fragments were held on the concrete floor of Hangar 17 at John F. Kennedy Airport, and the authors describe the tense atmosphere inside the cavernous space.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026

“We got it cataloged immediately, which means someone can order it up in the reading room tomorrow, and that’s warp speed for us,” she added.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2026

But in the heart of this chaos, Tyler had half a decade’s pencil shavings, cataloged by year.

From "Educated" by Tara Westover

His repeated attempts to flex expensive restaurant bills and hardman tough talk land like a waterlogged handkerchief after he’s spent song after song cataloging all the specific ways we’ve all hurt his feelings.

From Salon ● May 21, 2026

The surge of immigration detention flights at Minneapolis-Saint Paul airport spurred plane spotter Nick Benson to shift from tracking rare and unusual aircraft to cataloging the removal of detainees from Minnesota.

From Barron's ● Jan. 29, 2026

In 2013, von Konrat led a team of botanists and volunteers to survey the region, cataloging grasses, trees, and mosses in search of a location that matched the plant material found on the shoes.

From Science Daily ● Jan. 1, 2026

The continent’s economic power, Germany, is building a database of young people, cataloging their fitness and aptitude to help it pick whom to draft should the country be attacked.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 27, 2025

“He’s in a meeting. That's all I know. It’s not like I’ve memorized his schedule. I’m just supposed to do all this cataloging by myself, I suppose.”

From "Okay for Now" by Gary D. Schmidt

Baines also participated and led fieldwork in China, the Canary Islands and Vietnam, from where seven plant species new to science were catalogued.

From BBC ● Oct. 26, 2026

Marshall in 2024, catalogued the system’s due process pathologies and all but invited a broader challenge.

From Slate ● Jul. 28, 2026

Three hundred years later, Gray’s Anatomy by Henry Gray reinforced the impression that the body had finally been catalogued, indexed and neatly organized – a system mapped and fully explained.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 21, 2026

Sloth jaws and sabertooth fangs and a truly astonishing amount of ancient vertebrae — all of it will be swaddled, catalogued and crated for the next two years.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2026

He catalogued the verbal attacks the ANC had made on him and criticized the ANC’s negotiating demands.

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela

Buyers and sellers are seeing the biggest differences compared with last year in West Palm Beach, which saw a near-40% increase in pending sales, Redfin data cataloguing the nation’s largest metropolitan areas show.

From Barron's ● May 26, 2026

In a letter to her, South Wales Police blamed a lack of cataloguing evidence tapes, and it was only in July 2021 when 8,605 tapes were digitised that Michaela's was found.

From BBC ● May 23, 2026

“The cataloguing and photographing of the notebook was a valid part of the inventory search,” he wrote.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 18, 2026

A graduate program in archival science at Pratt helped him gather focus, while turning him on to the infinite history of sound data and cataloguing.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 8, 2025

Stopping before the narrow garage, he sniffed the fumes from Paradise with great sensory pleasure, the protruding hairs in his nostrils analyzing, cataloguing, categorizing, and classifying the distinct odors of hot dog, mustard, and lubricant.

From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole

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Related Words

• book
• catalogue
• file
• inventory
• list
• prospectus

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