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Catch up   /kætʃ əp/   Listen
verb
Catch  v. t.  (past & past part. caught; pres. part. catching; catched is rarely used)  
1.
To lay hold on; to seize, especially with the hand; to grasp (anything) in motion, with the effect of holding; as, to catch a ball.
2.
To seize after pursuing; to arrest; as, to catch a thief. "They pursued... and caught him."
3.
To take captive, as in a snare or net, or on a hook; as, to catch a bird or fish.
4.
Hence: To insnare; to entangle. "To catch him in his words".
5.
To seize with the senses or the mind; to apprehend; as, to catch a melody. "Fiery thoughts... whereof I catch the issue."
6.
To communicate to; to fasten upon; as, the fire caught the adjoining building.
7.
To engage and attach; to please; to charm. "The soothing arts that catch the fair."
8.
To get possession of; to attain. "Torment myself to catch the English throne."
9.
To take or receive; esp. to take by sympathy, contagion, infection, or exposure; as, to catch the spirit of an occasion; to catch the measles or smallpox; to catch cold; the house caught fire.
10.
To come upon unexpectedly or by surprise; to find; as, to catch one in the act of stealing.
11.
To reach in time; to come up with; as, to catch a train.
To catch fire, to become inflamed or ignited.
to catch it to get a scolding or beating; to suffer punishment. (Colloq.)
To catch one's eye, to interrupt captiously while speaking. (Colloq.) "You catch me up so very short."
To catch up, to snatch; to take up suddenly.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Catch up" Quotes from Famous Books



... in body. Although a girl is lighter than a boy at birth, on the average she gains in weight faster and is heavier at twelve than a boy of the same age. She also gains faster in height, and for a few years in early adolescence is taller than a boy of the same age. Of course, boys catch up and finally become much taller and heavier than girls. Similarly, a girl's mind develops faster than the mind of a boy, as shown in memory and ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... the distance Stearns made good. Summoning all his football wind and speed the little right end closed and shot ahead. Not once in the remainder of the course did Ben Badger quite catch up with his smaller opponent. Stearns won ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... many who make high pretensions to superior sanctity rest their hopes, to a great extent, on a similar foundation. With the Pharisaical Jews, they think if they judge them that do evil, even though they do the same, they shall escape the judgment of God. They are as eager to catch up and proclaim upon the house-top the deficiencies of their brethren, as the self-righteous moralist, who prides himself on making no profession, and yet being as consistent as those that do. If such ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... a woods where the pines were beautiful and the silence noticeable. Upon asking Romer to enumerate the things I had called to his attention, the few times I could catch up with him on the day's journey, he promptly replied—two big spiders—tarantulas, a hawk, and Mormon Lake. This lake was another snow-melted mud-hole, said to contain fish. I doubted that. Perhaps the little bull-head catfish ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... up a pretty fair working line of that along La Salle Street. A boy's education should begin with to-day, deal a little with to-morrow, and then go back to day before yesterday. But when a fellow begins with the past, it's apt to take him too long to catch up with the present. A man can learn better most of the things that happened between A.D. 1492 and B.C. 5000 after he's grown, for then he can sense their meaning and remember what's worth knowing. But you take the average boy who's been loaded up with this sort of ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer


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