catch red-handed

1. Also, catch in the act. Apprehend someone in the course of wrongdoing, as in The boys were trying to steal a car and the police caught them red-handed, or He tried to cheat on the exam, but his teacher walked in and caught him in the act. The first term referred to blood on a murderer's hands and originally signified only that crime. Later it was extended to any offense. The variant (catch in the act) is a translation of the Latin in flagrante delicto, part of the Roman code and long used in English law.

Example Sentences

Yet despite high-profile prosecutions of a handful of galgueros who threw their dogs down wells, the perpetrators of the vast majority of galgo killings or abandonings never get punished because they’re hard to catch red-handed.

Read more on National Geographic

Then last of all Elmer thought of Jem Shock, the slippery customer whom no warden had thus far been able to catch red-handed, breaking the game laws; and who, it seemed, had gained an unenviable reputation for boldness as well as knavery, so that his name, bandied about from lip to lip, had gradually become a synonym for everything that was bad, whether the fellow deserved it or not.

Read more on Project Gutenberg

“And so, because they are so known among the village people here, you are prosecuting this campaign against a man whom you hope to catch red-handed.”

Read more on Project Gutenberg

A general idea, however, that half-past ten would make quite a long enough day for such work made me hope to be in time to frustrate or perchance to catch red-handed this clever miscreant.

Read more on Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• startle