catch cold

1. 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.

Example Sentences

“I could never have achieved that if I hadn’t learned to say: ‘Ooh Captain Mainwaring, my mum said even if the Germans come I mustn’t catch cold.’”

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This feisty fixture can sometimes be caught cold in nervy early stages, but the typical derby anxiety quickly descended into bedlam.

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Once again the country's pollsters and pundits were caught cold by the result.

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"What are we going to do to turn that around? Find out on Saturday. Go harder. We've got to be better everywhere. We've got to be better because we lost. We won't be caught cold."

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“Ophelia, run downstairs and tell Cook to ring the doctor. Ma’am, let me help you back to bed before you catch cold.”

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