red-handed

Examples

• All

• I remember one incident when I was nearly caught red-handed.

  Fiction book (1993)

• One time I stole some candy from the grocery store... ...and the manager saw me, caught me red-handed.

  Get on the Bus (1996)

• I caught him red handed!

  Bernie (2012)

• Yeah, you catch him red-handed, live in living color.

  American Wisper (2020)

• The police need to catch him red-handed.

  As a Prelude to Fear (2022)

• Even on those days, I lived in fear that he would return home early just to catch me red-handed.

  Fiction book (1997)

• The burglars are caught red-handed and arrested.

  Alene B. Duerk: The First Woman Admiral (2020)

• This time we've caught you red-handed.

  7th Heaven (1927)

• One day the students came up to their teacher, Benzie, and reported how they had caught one of their fellow students red handed as he was stealing something in class.

• Yes, you caught me red-handed; I actually revamped 23 blog posts on my blog.

  Blog text (16)

Synonyms

D

dead to rights

vsred-handed

• Informal

11 8.6

Caught clearly doing something wrong

stresses direct witnessing of wrongdoing together with clear evidence

C

caught red-handed

vsred-handed

9 4.6

Discovered while doing something wrong or illegal

is the shorter idiom focusing on the state rather than the action of discovery

C

caught in the act

vsred-handed

5 3.7

Someone finds a person while they are doing something wrong

adds the idea of clear physical evidence proving the action

B

bang to rights

vsred-handed

• Informal

9.9

Caught in the act with clear proof

emphasizes being seen during the act plus clear supporting evidence

Antonyms

I

innocent

∞ 2.2

Not guilty of a crime or wrongdoing

Surface Forms

Morphology

Etymology