catch cold


Also, catch one's death (of cold). Become infected with a cold virus, contract a bad cold, as in Jane manages to catch cold on every important business trip, or Put on your hat or you'll catch your death. The first term originally (16th century) meant becoming chilled by exposure to cold and took on its present meaning in the late 1600s. The hyperbolic variant, often shortened, is somewhat newer.

Words Nearby catch cold

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

How to use catch cold in a sentence

  • It would have been great fun, if I had not been afraid papa would catch cold, and he said we would canter on to the inn.

    The Daisy Chain | Charlotte Yonge
  • "And Martha made you give her rum and water, mother, or else she would catch cold," added the son.

  • But do not hurry yourself, for I shall not catch cold, and my sweetheart does not care whether I have one or not.'

    Greifenstein | F. Marion Crawford
  • Sir, you may catch cold by going so soon into the air; you don't look, sir, as if you were perfectly recovered.

    The Beaux-Stratagem | George Farquhar
  • Cinny'll catch cold; she hasn't got enough clothes on; Cinny never has enough clothes on.

    Under the Law | Edwina Stanton Babcock