to catch up
90
2.5
- phrasal verb
- /kæʧ ʌp/
:
ponerse al día
- The teacher offered extra help to students who wanted to catch up on the lessons they had missed.
We need to like catch up, you know, with society now.
- We need to like catch up, you know, with society now.
- Like, like the, the world needs to catch up a little bit.
- I feel like the world will catch up eventually, you know.
- Let's, you know, let's learn so that I catch up.
- I'm also going to catch up on the Reading Plant based repellent.
- Oh, Josie, there's so much that you have to catch up on.
- The notion that if you know, I share my science with you, then you're going to catch up and like know the same thing.
Examples
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- I'll catch up with you later.
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I'll catch up with you.
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We need to like catch up, you know, with society now.
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Um, I'll catch up with you guys later.
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So we think we need to catch up and you know what's next?
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Our roundup of developments aims to help you catch up with recent product launches and current guidance.
Academic text (2014) -
After a few moments, Fletcher squirms free and runs to catch up with Rachel.
Fiction book (1992) -
Margaret worked at her computer afterward, catching up on notes to friends and updates about Julia to family.
Fiction book (1999) -
Pota and Braddon spent the evening catching up with the message packets Moira had brought them.
Fiction book (1992) -
She took the day off to catch up on all the news she missed while she was traveling.
Synonyms
19
3.5
Review and improve what you know about something you have not used for a while
14
4.1
To learn the latest information about a project or task
How Up-to-Date
Surface Forms
Morphology
catch + up
The meaning 'to talk to someone after a period of time to exchange news' is not directly derivable from the literal senses of 'catch' (to seize) and 'up' (direction), since it describes a conversational/temporal activity rather than a physical action. It is partially motivated—the idea of 'bringing someone up to date' or 'reaching the same point' connects to the constituents and many languages have similar idioms—so learners may sometimes infer it but it is not fully predictable.
Etymology
Catch up can come from the idea of grabbing news or work to become current: you catch the missing items and pull yourself up to the same point as others. So, catch up means 'to become up to date with events or information'.