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gotcha

contractioninterjectionnouncommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈɡɒ.tʃə//
  • United States//ˈɡɑ.tʃə//

I have got you covered, I've got your back (said by a speaker who has an advantage or responsibility over someone).

contraction

  1. 1

    Variant of got youPronunciation spelling of got you.

    I gotcha now, ya little twerp.

    Yeah, I gotcha. Good thinkin'!

Etymology

From got + -cha.

interjection

  1. 1

    I have got you covered, I've got your back (said by a speaker who has an advantage or responsibility over someone).

    Gotcha! Go on in...

  2. 2

    I caught you (as when successfully bringing someone to reckoning or effecting some form of retribution).

    Gotcha! And don't ever do that to me again.

  3. 3

    I got you by surprise (indicating a successful trick or prank).

    Gotcha! You never noticed the whoopie cushion!

  4. 4

    I understand you or what you said.

    Gotcha! You just want me to stay here for now.

noun

  1. 1

    A potential problem or source of trouble.

    Review the work thoroughly and make sure there are no gotchas.

  2. 2

    A potential problem or source of trouble. A feature of a system or a program that works in the way it is documented but is counter-intuitive and almost invites mistake or non-function.

  3. 3

    An instance of publicly tricking someone or exposing them to ridicule, especially by means of an elaborate deception.

    gotcha question

    They change the number at random intervals and if you miss a sign. What a gotcha!

  4. 4

    An attempt to disprove or refute someone's argument, usually (but not necessarily) in a deceptive or disingenuous way.

    You're asking me a ridiculous hypothetical question that no one can reasonably answer. You need to stop with your gotchas.

    The gotcha in your second paragraph needs more developing. You don't have enough evidence that the author is contradicting himself.

  5. 5

    An instance of accomplishing a tricky idea or overcoming a difficult obstacle.

    Now here's another few gotchas that you can do to implement it.

    Wireless was the first gotcha when installing the distro.

Forms

plural
gotchas
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).