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Glite Dictionary
to catch someone napping

to catch someone napping

1 6.8
Notice someone being careless when they should be paying attention
  • idiom
  • Informal
: sorprender a alguien desprevenido
  • The security guard was caught napping and failed to notice the intruder entering the building.

Examples

  • You caught me napping.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • One day I'll catch him napping.

    The Contender (2000)

  • They were shopping for antiques, took a wrong turn downstairs, and happened to catch me napping at my desk.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • During the meeting, I could tell the manager was caught napping when he started to doze off during the presentation.

  • She thought she had successfully hidden her phone, but he caught her napping in class while texting.

Synonyms

to catch (someone) napping
vsto catch someone napping
1 7.5

To find someone not ready or not paying attention

is used when the person should be alert but is careless

Antonyms

alert
135 3.5

A state of being ready and watchful for possible danger

How Prepared

to surprise
712 1.0
to catch someone napping
  • Informal
1 6.8

Surface Forms

catch someone napping infinitive
catching someone napping present participle
catches someone napping third person singular
caught someone napping past
caught someone napping past participle

Morphology

catch + someone + napping

The meaning is built from 'catch' (notice) + 'napping' (sleeping), where 'sleeping' is metaphorically extended to mean 'unprepared or inattentive', so a learner who knows the words can often infer the figurative sense. However, the use is idiomatic/metaphorical rather than strictly compositional and can be misinterpreted literally without prior exposure, so it is not fully transparent.

Etymology

Catch someone napping comes from the idea of finding a person actually asleep on the job. If you catch someone napping, you find they are not paying attention, so the phrase means 'to find someone careless or unprepared'.