catch a wave
English
Verb
catch a wave (third-person singular simple present catches a wave, present participle catching a wave, simple past and past participle caught a wave)
- (surfing) To mount one's surfboard at a distance from shore, turn it toward land, and control it for a successful, satisfying ride on inrushing water.
- 2015 May 10, Ondine Cohane, “A Small Child, a Big Board, on Oahu’s North Shore”, in The New York Times[2], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 16 June 2022:
- As anyone who has ever caught a wave on her own knows, surfing is a profound confidence booster.
- 2018 September 12, Lana Del Rey, Jack Antonoff, “Mariners Apartment Complex”, in Norman Fucking Rockwell!, performed by Lana Del Rey:
- Catch a wave and take in the sweetness / Think about it, the darkness, the deepness / All the things that make me who I am
- (idiomatic, by extension) To derive benefit from a fortunate opportunity; to experience a sudden increase in energy or luck.
- 1997 January 23, David Cay Johnston, “A Man Who Repaid His Debts”, in The New York Times[3], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 29 January 2021:
- The size of his fortune, he said, revealed only that "we caught a wave. We were lucky. We had more luck than we deserved."
- 2015 November 8, Simon Briggs, “Andy Murray brushed aside by increasingly dominant Novak Djokovic in Paris Masters final”, in Chris Evans, editor, The Daily Telegraph[4], London: Telegraph Media Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 17 July 2025:
- He did have one brief spell in the second set when he seemed to catch a wave, pounding his backhand and winning 11 of 14 points.