Word Study
catchy
CIDE DICTIONARY
catchy, a.
- Apt or tending to catch the fancy or attention; catching; taking; as, catchy music. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
- Tending to catch or insnare; entangling; -- usually used fig.; as, a catchy question. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
- Consisting of, or occuring in, disconnected parts or snatches; changeable; as, a catchy wind. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]"It [the fox's scent] is . . . flighty or catchy, if variable." [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
OXFORD DICTIONARY
catchy, adj. (catchier, catchiest)
1 (of a tune) easy to remember; attractive.
2 that snares or entraps; deceptive.
3 (of the wind etc.) fitful, spasmodic.
1 (of a tune) easy to remember; attractive.
2 that snares or entraps; deceptive.
3 (of the wind etc.) fitful, spasmodic.
Derivative
catchily adv. catchiness n.
Etymology
CATCH + -Y(1)
THESAURUS
catchy
achingly sweet, agreeable, agreeable-sounding, appealing, ariose, arioso, beguiling, broken, canorous, cantabile, capricious, careening, choppy, deceiving, deceptive, delusive, delusory, desultory, deviative, disconnected, discontinuous, dubious, dulcet, eccentric, erratic, euphonic, euphonious, euphonous, fallacious, false, fine-toned, fishy, fitful, flickering, fluctuating, golden, golden-tongued, golden-voiced, guttering, hallucinatory, halting, herky-jerky, heteroclite, honeyed, illusive, illusory, immethodical, inconstant, intermittent, intermitting, irregular, jerky, lurching, melic, mellifluent, mellifluous, mellisonant, mellow, melodic, melodious, misleading, music-flowing, music-like, musical, nonuniform, on-again-off-again, patchy, pleasant, pleasant-sounding, questionable, rambling, rich, rough, scrappy, silver-toned, silver-tongued, silver-voiced, silvery, singable, snatchy, songful, songlike, sonorous, spasmatic, spasmic, spasmodic, spastic, sporadic, spotty, staggering, sweet, sweet-flowing, sweet-sounding, trickish, tricksy, tricky, tunable, tuneful, uncertain, unequal, uneven, unmethodical, unmetrical, unregular, unrhythmical, unsettled, unsteady, unsystematic, variable, veering, wandering, wavering, wobbling, wobblyFor further exploring for "catchy" in Webster Dictionary Online