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

How could the owners of this catalog, of all people, object to well-funded operations cranking out simulations?

From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2026

There’s no shortage of new ones to choose from, but there’s also a catalog of cinematic scarefests stretching back more than a century.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 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

If any record in their catalog can get them to a new tier of success, it’ll be this one.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2026

Grace’s mom and she looked at them together like they were shopping in a catalog.

From "Far from the Tree" by Robin Benway

“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

Students spent weeks searching library catalogs, locating journal articles, reading books, organizing notes, developing arguments, drafting and revising.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026

Shamrock’s media holdings include investments in content catalogs with songs by Beyoncé, Coldplay and Rihanna, as well as films and videogames.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 2026

Astronomers will use those observations to build large catalogs and then apply physical models to determine what those catalogs reveal about the structure and evolution of the universe.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 28, 2026

Then one day, a week before Halloween, I saw it amongst the catalogs and bills and coupon flyers.

From "I Will Always Write Back" by Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda

Currently, there are more than 17,000 active satellites in orbit, compared with around 1,000 a decade ago, said Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist who has cataloged every orbital rocket launch since 1957.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 2, 2026

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

Yet among the more than 6,300 exoplanets cataloged thus far, most are not rocky, and only a small number of known rocky planets appear to possess atmospheres.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 7, 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 this seems unreasonable: modern libraries, after all, keep records of duplicate volumes, and their ancient counterpart was no less carefully cataloged.

From "Circumference" by Nicholas Nicastro

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 exhibition begins with “Uncovering Hidden Gems,” a selection of acquisitions that entered the collection early and lacked cataloging information.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 12, 2025

In the years following his proof of the existence of other galaxies, Hubble spent his time cataloging their distances and observing their spectra.

From "A Brief History of Time: And Other Essays" by Stephen Hawking

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

Later historians described this engraving and, despite having never seen the painting, catalogued its existence.

From Barron's ● Nov. 30, 2025

He observed and catalogued details outside his main object.

From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck

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

“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

That cataloguing is indispensable, but the words and concepts we use for it matter.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 2, 2025

In the distance she saw smoke rising from a farmhouse chimney, and two figures moved slowly in the empty field as if cataloguing their losses.

From "Huntress" by Malinda Lo

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Related Words

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

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