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catch up on meaning and examples

2025-09-12

Meaning

  • Catch up on means to do something that you have not had time to do earlier, especially reading, studying, sleeping, or finishing tasks.
  • It refers to getting up to date with something missed.

Grammar and Usage

  • Part of speech: phrasal verb

  • Structure: catch up on + noun/gerund

    • Used with activities, work, or information you missed.
    • Focus is on completing or updating something that was delayed.

Examples of sentence structures:

  • "catch up on sleep"
  • "catch up on homework"
  • "catch up on emails"

Common Phrases

  • Catch up on sleep
  • Catch up on reading
  • Catch up on work
  • Catch up on emails/messages
  • Catch up on news

Collocations

  • Verb + catch up on: need to catch up on, try to catch up on
  • Noun + catch up on: homework, emails, reports, studies, sleep, chores

Examples

  1. I need to catch up on sleep after working late all week.
  2. She spent the weekend catching up on her assignments.
  3. I’ll use this afternoon to catch up on emails.
  4. We stayed home to catch up on housework.
  5. He’s trying to catch up on reading before the exam.
  6. During the holiday, I plan to catch up on the news.
  7. You should catch up on your studies before the test.
  8. I finally had time to catch up on my favorite TV shows.
  • make up for
  • get up to date with
  • complete
  • finish

Antonym

  • fall behind on
  • neglect
  • miss out on