What does catchup mean?
Catchup is an informal English noun denoting an act or period of making up for lost time — whether by clearing a backlog of emails, getting up to date with news and gossip, or repaying a sleep debt after a busy week. It most often appears in phrases such as "a catchup meeting", which describes a gathering intended to bring everyone up to speed rather than to make new decisions. In informal American usage it can also describe a competitive scramble, as when a lagging team or candidate plays catchup against a rival who is ahead. Standard reference works spell the term hyphenated, as "catch-up", so the closed form is best reserved for casual writing. The word carries no strong connotation of blame; being in catchup mode simply implies a temporary burst of activity to restore normal progress, making it a handy, neutral term for the universal experience of falling behind and scrambling to recover.
nounAn act or instance of catching up on something that has been neglected or delayed, such as work, news, or rest. It is usually written as the hyphenated form "catch-up" in standard usage.
- An act or period of catching up on delayed work, news, sleep, or other obligations.
- (Informal, chiefly American) A competitive situation in which someone is trying to overtake others who are ahead.
"After returning from vacation, she spent the morning in a frantic catchup on her email."
"The Monday team meeting was mostly a catchup on everything that had happened over the holidays."
"With two laps to go, the runner went into full catchup mode to close the gap on the leader."
The plural is rare; the word is typically used in the singular or as part of fixed phrases.
"The calendar was packed with back-to-back catchups all week."
"Catchup" and "ketchup" were once interchangeable spellings of the same word — today one goes on your fries and the other on your to-do list.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does catchup come from?
Catchup derives transparently from the verb phrase "catch up", formed from the verb "catch" (from Old North French cachier, ultimately from Latin captare) plus the adverbial particle "up". As a noun, it arose in the nineteenth century through the common process of turning a phrasal verb into a compound. Its spelling history took an odd turn: in the seventeenth century, "catchup" was actually one of several early English spellings of the fish-sauce word now written "ketchup", before the two terms diverged into entirely separate words.
Related word forms
How catchup is actually used
Standard dictionaries print this word as "catch-up", with a hyphen; "catchup" as a single unhyphenated word is an informal or nonstandard spelling. The phrase "play catch-up" is well established in both British and American English.
Easily confused with catchup
Ketchup is the tomato-based condiment, while catchup means an act of catching up on something delayed.