Word.ws English Dictionary

catches up

catches up is the third-person singular simple present indicative of catch up.

Meaning of catch up

Verb

catch up (third-person singular simple present catches up, present participle catching up, simple past and past participle caught up)

  1. (transitive) To pick up suddenly.
    • Oscar stopped the horses and waved to Carl, who caught up his hat and ran through the melon patch to join them.1913, Willa Cather, O Pioneers!, chapter 3
  2. (transitive, chiefly passive voice) To entangle (something).
    • The speaker wires have got caught up with the wires from the lights.
  3. (broadly, transitive, chiefly passive voice) To involve in (something); to embroil.
    • That's why she got caught up in addiction.
  4. (intransitive) To be brought up to date with news.
    • I hadn't seen her for so long. It was great to catch up.
  5. (transitive) To bring (someone) up to date with the news.
    • After Alice's vacation, her boss caught her up on policy changes.
  6. (ambitransitive) To reach something that had been ahead.
    • Rose was three seconds behind, but managed to catch up with the race leader and eventually won.

See all 8 meanings of catch up

Questions about catches up

What is catches up the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Catches up is the third-person singular simple present indicative of catch up.

Words near catches up in the dictionary

  1. catches strays
  2. catches the bus
  3. catches the eye
  4. catches the light
  5. catches the sun
  6. catches up
  7. catches wreck
  8. catches Z's
  9. catchest
  10. catcheth
  11. catchfart

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: catches up (page history and authors); catch up (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “catches up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/catches_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.