Definition of "catch-up" []

• An approach or strategy intended to overcome a disadvantage or lead: The competition will be playing catch-up for the rest of the season. (noun)
• An increase intended to bring an amount or rate up to a standard: "the statutory catch-up of Social Security benefits with the cost of living” ( Nation). (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "For example, although those 50 and over are eligible to make so-called catch-up contributions to IRAs and 401ks, some 68% of those eligible aren't taking advantage of the provision."
• "Despite rapid catch-up from the Chinese, the U.K. is still the most important trading partner of the euro bloc euro 187.4 billion in total trade volume in the first half of 2011, against euro 186.9 billion with China and only euro 115.7 billion worth of goods bought and sold with the U.S."
• "In 1984, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin founded the first Catholic megachurch, Holy Family Catholic Community, in suburban Chicago as “an evangelical church in the Roman Catholic tradition,” explicitly modeled on and competing with Willow Creek Community Church, three miles away, the first of the major U.S. evangelical megachurches.40 However, like Sears belatedly mimicking Walmart, they were playing catch-up."