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Glite Dictionary
to catch someone napping

to catch someone napping

6.8
Notice someone being careless when they should be paying attention
  • idiom
  • Informal
translation icon : 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
7.5

To find someone not ready or not paying attention

is used when the person should be alert but is careless

Antonyms

alert
137 3.5

A state of being ready and watchful for possible danger

How Prepared

to surprise
∞ 1.0
to catch someone napping
  • Informal
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'.