catalog
Americannoun
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catalogs
plural
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a list or record, as of items for sale or courses at a university, systematically arranged and often including descriptive material.
a stamp catalog.
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something that contains such a list or record, as a book, leaflet, or file.
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a list of the contents of a library or a group of libraries, arranged according to any of various systems.
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any list or record.
a catalog of complaints.
verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
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to produce a catalog.
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to have a specified price as listed in a catalog.
This model catalogs for $49.95.
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to offer merchandise in a mail-order catalog.
adjective
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
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catalogernoun
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catalogistnoun
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cataloguernoun
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cataloguistnoun
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miscatalogverb (used with object)
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miscatalogueverb (used with object)
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recatalogverb (used with object)
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catalogicadjective
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catalogicaladjective
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catalogisticadjective
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noncatalogadjective
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noncatalogueadjective
Inflected Forms
Nouns
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-
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.
Vocabulary lists containing catalog
ESL Library Vocabulary
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Researching Strategies and Using the Library
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Put It This Way: Synonyms for "Describe"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Green Day’s decade-spanning catalog of spit-flecked pop-punk forms both the soundtrack and the heart of the movie.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
The battle over Warner Bros. began last year, when media giants Netflix and Paramount went to war over the famed movie studio and its prized back catalog.
From Barron's ● Jul. 24, 2026
The company had software engineers shadow bankers for two weeks from 8:30 a.m. to midnight and catalog everything they did to find efficiencies.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026
In May 2024, researchers from Project Hephaistos reported seven promising Dyson sphere candidates, all associated with red dwarfs, after examining a catalog of roughly 5 million stars.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 10, 2026
The moment she had seen the coat in the Sears catalog in camp, she knew she had to have it.
From "A Place to Belong" by Cynthia Kadohata
Ms. Brown catalogs the patient loads, paperwork and hospital hierarchies that wear nurses down.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
The diminishing returns of instant gratification might explain why catalogs are nearly always, according to trade publications and business journals, on the verge of a renaissance.
From Salon ● Jul. 18, 2026
Compulsion Games, known for "South of Midnight" and Double Fine Productions, maker of "Psychonauts," will become independent, retaining their intellectual property and game catalogs.
From Barron's ● Jul. 6, 2026
A lot of musicians from your generation have been selling their catalogs lately.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 2, 2026
He’s putting himself through the Art Institute here by being a male model for JCPenney catalogs and things like that.
From "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky
Crawling into my hotel bed that evening, I cataloged the damage.
From Slate ● Jun. 5, 2026
In this new scientific age, color was something to be cataloged, quantified and, eventually, defined.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 27, 2026
Over five years, researchers cataloged marine life and tested mining impacts in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a vast region of the Pacific Ocean located between Mexico and Hawaii.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 2, 2026
I started out with hundreds of photographs that I’d cataloged from like 15 films that I’d been on over the course of 30 years.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2025
In her mind she cataloged the many betrayals.
From "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng
At a time when cataloging travel woes have become such a big part of the cultural conversation, it offers the ultimate escape.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2026
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 cataloging the nation’s largest metropolitan areas show.
From Barron's ● May 26, 2026
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
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
So I turn to stare out my own window, mentally cataloging the restaurants and storefronts.
From "What If It's Us" by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera
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
Each coat is checked, bagged and catalogued at the central hub in Wembley before being distributed to events such as this.
From BBC ● Dec. 12, 2025
But, by working through each action-unit combination, Ekman and Friesen identified about three thousand that did seem to mean something, until they had catalogued the essential repertoire of human facial displays of emotion.
From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
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
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
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
