catch fire

1. 1.

   start to burn or burst into flames

   “Marsh gases ignited suddenly”

   “The oily rags combusted spontaneously”

   Synonymseruptignitetake firecombustconflagrate

   Broaderchange state

   Narrowerblow outcatchlight up

Questions about catch fire

What does catch fire mean?

catch fire means "start to burn or burst into flames".

What is another word for catch fire?

Close synonyms include erupt, ignite, take fire, combust, conflagrate. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is catch fire a common word?

catch fire is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.