catch crop, any quick-growing crop sown between seasons of regular planting to make use of temporary idleness of the soil or to compensate for the failure of a main crop. It may be such rapid-maturing vegetables as radishes, onions grown from sets, or spinach (planted between rows of slower growing crops); quick-growing crops such as rye, millet, or buckwheat; or an annual legume, such as soybean, which is valuable as fodder or, when plowed under, increases the soil's fertility. See cover crop.

English round, or simple perpetual canon, for three or more unaccompanied voices. Catches were sung by men as a popular pastime in the 16th–19th centuries. Catch texts were often humorous or ribald, and in some instances a pause in the melody in one voice was filled in by the notes and text of another, creating a pun or change of meaning, especially in the late-17th-century Restoration period.

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