Dictionary
Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.
breath-catching en · ADJ
Meanings
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Inspiring awe or deep admiration; impressive.
Donal Henahan reported that her performance of it was “breath-catching in its vocal warmth and emotional power.”
2010, James Neufeld, Lois Marshall: A Biography, →ISBN, page 239:For here was a vista that was breath-catching and inspiring, a wholly new thing come into the world.
2011, Harry Harrison, Tunnel Through the Deeps, →ISBN:The theory was breath-catching, but quickly fell apart when the accountant could give no account of what Sibyl might have done with Theresa's body.
2004, Mel Bradshaw, Death in the Age of Steam: A Mystery, →ISBN, page 99:
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Extremely frightening or overwhelming.
To cap the feat, their leader made a breath-catching descent by what mountain men call a rappel, riding down a rope almost 400 feet.
1964 June 5, “Now Man Conquers Mt. Eiffel”, in Life, volume 56, number 23, page 106:I asked whether he would mind if I looked through them, and after a few minutes I found the map: it was a breath-catching moment for, as I unfolded it, I saw that it must show the deployment of a whole searchlight regiment covering the entire southern half of Belgium.
2009, R.V. Jones, Most Secret War, →ISBN:He was moving towards her with a purposefully predatory stride, stopping only when he was breath-catching inches away from her.
2014, Elizabeth Power, Back in the Lion's Den, →ISBN:
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Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see breath, catching.
Forms
Deriveds
breath-catchingly