We had fun catching up with friends at our class reunion.
Do you know what “catching up” means in that sentence?
There are times when we don’t see a person for a long time and then, when you meet again, you need to share news and updates about everything that has happened since the last time you saw each other. That’s to “catch up with” someone.
When you “catch up to” someone / something, you move faster to join a person or thing that is ahead of you.
- I stopped and waited for her to catch up.
- Lorenzo biked so fast that I couldn't catch up.
- Kim ran and ran but never caught up to the bus.
- *often used figuratively: The North American company will need to use more advanced technologies to catch up to its Japanese competitors.
To “catch up on” is an idiom meaning to do a task that one has neglected, or to do something that one could have done earlier.
- - Claudia has to catch up on her homework over the weekend.
- - Elisa used Saturday to catch up on much-needed sleep.
- - Carlo is lazy. As a result, he will never catch up on his office work.
We can use this verb in all forms: catch up, caught up, are catching up, were catching up, have caught up, etc.