Adjacent Words

Ketch definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

KETCH, n. A vessel with two masts, a main and mizen-mast,usually fRomans 100 to 250 tones burden. Ketches are generally used as yachts or as bomb-vessels. The latter are called bomb-ketches.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a sailing vessel with two masts; the mizzen is forward of the rudderpost

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: alteration of catch, from Middle English cache Date: circa 1649 a fore-and-aft rigged vessel similar to a yawl but with a larger mizzen sail and with the mizzenmast stepped farther forward

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. a two-masted fore-and-aft rigged sailing-boat with a mizen-mast stepped forward of the rudder and smaller than its foremast. Etymology: ME catche, prob. f. CATCH

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Ketch Ketch (k[e^]ch), n. [Prob. corrupted fr. Turk. q[=a][imac]q : cf. F. caiche. Cf. Ca["i]que.] (Naut.) An almost obsolete form of vessel, with a mainmast and a mizzenmast, -- usually from one hundred to two hundred and fifty tons burden. Bomb ketch. See under Bomb.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Ketch Ketch, n. A hangman. See Jack Ketch.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Ketch Ketch, v. t. [See Catch.] To catch. [Now obs. in spelling, and colloq. in pronunciation.] To ketch him at a vantage in his snares. --Spenser.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(ketches) A ketch is a type of sailing ship that has two masts. N-COUNT

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

Jack Ketch; a general name for the finishers of the law, or hangmen, ever since the year 1682, when the office was filled by a famous practitioner of that name, of whom his wife said, that any bungler might put a man to death, but only her husband knew how to make a gentleman die sweetly. This officer is mentioned in Butler's Ghost, page 54, published about the year 1682, in the following lines:

Till Ketch observing he was chous'd, And in his profits much abus'd. In open hall the tribute dunn'd, To do his office, or refund.

Mr. Ketch had not long been elevated to his office, for the name of his predecessor Dun occurs in the former part of this poem, page
29:

For you yourself to act squire Dun,
Such ignominy ne'er saw the sun.

The addition of 'squire,' with which Mr. Dun is here dignified, is a mark that he had beheaded some state criminal for high treason; an operation which, according to custom for time out of mind, has always entitled the operator to that distinction. The predecessor of Dun was Gregory Brandon, from whom the gallows was called the Gregorian tree, by which name it is mentioned in the prologue to Mercurius Pragmaticus, tragi-comedy acted at Paris, etc.
1641:

This trembles under the black rod,
and he Doth fear his fate from the Gregorian tree.

Gregory Brandon succeeded Derrick: See DERRICK.