catch-as-catch-can

adjective

ˈkach-əz-ˈkach-ˈkan 

: using any available means or method : hit-or-miss

… a catch-as-catch-can system that relies on borrowed judges.

—Patricia Nealon

Synonyms of catch-as-catch-can

• random
• scattered
• arbitrary

Examples of catch-as-catch-can in a Sentence

we're always having drop-in guests at our beachfront cottage, and sleeping arrangements tend to be catch-as-catch-can

Recent Examples on the Web

There’s a certain catch-as-catch-can ephemerality to this work, which tends to appear for quick two- or three-day engagements, sometimes in familiar places—Lincoln Center’s dizzying Festival of Firsts (in the David Rubenstein Atrium, through Oct. 23), for instance—and sometimes farther afield. —Helen Shaw, New Yorker, 17 Oct. 2025

Prison is a kind of black-comedic version of a factory: in contrast to the catch-as-catch-can prisons of preindustrial times, everyone is assigned a role and compelled to conformity through regimentation or isolation. —Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 22 July 2024

The old days of barnstorming teams playing catch-as-catch-can schedules was no longer an acceptable business model. —Richard Selcer, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 8 June 2024

Cone collection, done by local residents who are paid by the bushel, is a catch-as-catch-can kind of business. —Lydia Depillis, New York Times, 4 Apr. 2024

Their thorny flawed catch-as-catch-can humanity now stands in stark contrast to the majority of movies that have been spun off from comic books over the last 40 years. —Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 10 June 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1833, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for catch-as-catch-can

• agamemnon
• automaton
• diencephalon
• panopticon
• phenomenon
• aileron
• antiphon
• autobahn
• carillon
• castellan
• celadon
• cephalon