to catch fire
5
3.7
- phrasal verb
- /kæʧ faɪər/
- Texting
:
hacerse viral
- When the new song was released, it quickly caught fire on social media, trending within hours.
- campaign caught fire
- idea caught fire
- failed to catch fire
I will tell you this, no question a a great piece of long form written word has more potential to catch fire on Facebook than anywhere else.
- I will tell you this, no question a a great piece of long form written word has more potential to catch fire on Facebook than anywhere else.
- And then I took it to TikTok and I guess on TikTok, it's very easy for things to like catch fire, catch speed on there.
- And I think that with us all doing that and Bobby Kennedy doing that, it just sort of caught fire.
- So in, in your view, Evan, what was happening in the zeitgeist or what was happening, what circumstances were present that made this idea catch fire?
- And he took to the Internet and basically, like, I think he wrote an innocuous, shitty tweet that then caught fire.
- And for whatever reason, the last decade, it's caught fire.
Examples
-
If this happens, the IPO market will catch fire for lots of other companies.
Blog text (12) -
For whatever reason, the Zynga games caught fire, and the Buddy games didn't.
Blog text (26) -
I really got a feeling like we could catch fire and have a great season.
-
We keep waiting and hoping for her to catch fire.
Blog text (20) -
It's a really neat idea, and it has caught fire over the last few years.
Blog text (9) -
Why didn't this movement catch fire?
Blog text (3) -
The reception for the film was astonishing and it just caught fire from that point forward.
-
The story, ridiculous as it seems at first reading, caught fire with screenwriters and playwrights.
Academic text (2001) -
And though first a little skeptical these moderates inquired, and once they finally saw the show their love for it caught fire!
-
Don Dupree has caught fire as assistant news director of CBS/Chicago, helping them to a recent ratings surge.
Blog text (9)
Synonyms
92
4.1
Spread quickly among many people
61
3.8
To spread very quickly online and reach many people
60
3.2
To become popular with many people
53
4.2
To become popular online for a short time
26
3.4
To become very popular quickly, often online
23
4.4
To quickly become very popular and liked by many people
11
3.0
To become known by many people very quickly
11
3.9
Get a lot of attention in an exciting way
7
3.9
To sell very quickly because many people want it
4
7.1
To have a big success that many people notice
Become very popular or successful very quickly
To spread news or pictures quickly among many people on the internet
Make someone suddenly very famous
Antonyms
How Popular
- Texting
61
3.8
- Texting
5
3.7
60
3.2
9
4.2
11
3.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The literal meaning 'to start burning' is directly compositional from 'catch' + 'fire', but the target sense 'to become very popular / spread quickly' is a metaphorical extension based on the image of fire spreading. This mapping is partly predictable and cross-linguistically common, so learners who know the constituents may infer the figurative sense only with some metaphor awareness rather than full transparency.
Etymology
Catch fire for popularity comes from the picture of a small flame spreading fast through dry grass. When an idea spreads the same way, people say it catches fire, so it means 'to become suddenly very popular'.