Wiktionary
a. 1 (context idiomatic English) intermittent; only when possible or when the opportunity presents itself 2 (context wrestling English) of a form of amateur freestyle wrestling (catch wrestling) adv. ad hoc, or in any way possible alt. 1 (context idiomatic English) intermittent; only when possible or when the opportunity presents itself 2 (context wrestling English) of a form of amateur freestyle wrestling (catch wrestling)
Usage examples of "catch-as-catch-can".
Hotel Arapahoe, now a catch-as-catch-can lazaret and bagnio one minute from Times Square.
The sincerity and artlessness with which she discussed what she called her “love-life,” from first necking to connubial catch-as-catch-can, were, ethically, in striking contrast with my glib compositions, but technically the two sets were congeneric since both were affected by the same stuff (soap operas, psychoanalysis and cheap novelettes) upon which I drew for my characters and she for her mode of expression.
They piled into the crowd catch-as-catch-can, hopelessly vulnerable to flank or rear attacks aimed at their weapons if anybody had been thinking of launching one.
They gathered that the line was an irregular carrier that operated on a catch-as-catch-can basis.
She had no vibrato, catch-as-catch-can volume, and an overfondness for slide.
There were those who maintained that cameras weren't really scientific instruments, but rather catch-as-catch-can, razzle-dazzle, pandering to the public, and unable to answer a single straightforward, well-posed scientific question.