If two people grow apart, they slowly become less close and connected to each other over time, usually because their lives, interests, or feelings have changed. This process happens gradually, not because of a single argument or event.

Type

Inseparable phrasal verb.

Notes

"Grow apart" is an inseparable phrasal verb, meaning the two words cannot be separated by an object. You must always say "They grew apart" — you cannot place a word between "grow" and "apart." There is also no direct object with this verb; it describes a mutual, intransitive process between two or more people.

Conjugation

Narrative

Mia and her childhood best friend Diane had been inseparable through school, but after Diane got married and Mia moved abroad for graduate studies, their phone calls became shorter and less frequent. One evening, scrolling through old photos, Mia felt a quiet sadness. She typed a long message to Diane, admitting, "I feel like we've grown apart and I miss you." Diane replied within minutes: "Me too. Can we do a video call Sunday?" That one honest message didn't fix everything, but it cracked open a door they had both been afraid to touch.

Register

Neutral

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels are celebrated as lifelong intellectual partners, but their relationship was not without strain. After the failed revolutions of 1848 swept Europe, Marx settled in London in poverty, increasingly consumed by his massive theoretical project that would become Das Kapital. Engels, by contrast, returned to managing his family's textile factory in Manchester — work he found soul-crushing but financially necessary to support Marx. Through the 1850s and 1860s, the two men wrote frequently, but their daily realities could not have been more different: Marx in a cramped Soho flat, burying himself in British Museum manuscripts; Engels navigating cotton prices and factory ledgers. Their letters from this period show flashes of irritation, misunderstanding, and emotional distance. Yet unlike many partnerships under similar pressures, they chose to close the gap — Engels eventually moved to London in 1870, and the two resumed their close collaboration in person. Their story is a reminder that even the deepest bonds can grow apart under the quiet pressure of diverging circumstances, and that distance, left unaddressed, has a way of becoming permanent.

To reach the same level or position as someone who is ahead of you, often after falling behind. It can also mean to update yourself on news, events, or information you have missed.

Type

Inseparable phrasal verb.

Notes

When 'catch up' is used with an object referring to a person or group, the preposition 'with' is required and the phrase cannot be split — you say 'catch up with her,' never 'catch her up with.' Note that in British English, 'catch someone up' (without 'with') is sometimes used to mean overtake or reach someone, but the standard international form remains 'catch up with someone.'

Conjugation

Narrative

Priya had taken a year off after her engineering degree to care for her mother. When she finally rejoined her postgraduate program in September 2022, her cohort was already deep into advanced coursework. She felt the gap immediately — references to lectures she had never attended, terminology that meant nothing to her. Rather than panic, she made a plan: two extra hours of study each morning before class, weekly sessions with a study partner, and a color-coded revision calendar. By December, she had managed to catch up with the group and even scored above average in the semester final.

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Informal

In the early 1960s, the United States found itself dangerously behind the Soviet Union in the space race. The USSR had launched Sputnik in 1957 and put Yuri Gagarin into orbit in April 1961 — milestones that stunned American scientists and politicians alike. NASA's budget was a fraction of what was needed, its rockets unreliable, and its engineers racing against time. President John F. Kennedy responded on May 25, 1961, by committing the nation before Congress to landing a man on the Moon before the decade was out. The declaration was audacious: the technology required barely existed. NASA expanded rapidly, hiring thousands of engineers and scientists, establishing facilities in Houston and Cape Canaveral, and running parallel development programs simultaneously. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface. The United States had not merely caught up with its rival — it had surpassed it entirely. The episode remains one of history's most dramatic examples of what focused, resourced determination can achieve when a nation decides, urgently and collectively, to catch up.

To reconcile with someone after a disagreement or argument; also, to invent a story or excuse that is not true; or to do something to compensate for a loss, mistake, or missed opportunity.

Type

Separable phrasal verb.

Notes

When 'make up' is used with an object, the verb and particle can be separated: 'She made a story up' or 'She made up a story' are both correct. However, when the object is a pronoun, it must go between the verb and particle: say 'She made it up,' not 'She made up it.' When the meaning is 'to reconcile,' the verb is typically used without a direct object or with 'with': 'They made up' or 'He made up with her.'

Conjugation

Narrative

Priya and her college roommate Jen hadn't spoken in two weeks — not since the argument over whose turn it was to pay the electricity bill. It was Priya who finally broke first. She knocked on Jen's bedroom door one Tuesday evening, holding two mugs of chamomile tea. 'I was petty,' she said simply. 'I'm sorry.' Jen looked at the tea, then at Priya, and something in her face softened. They sat on the kitchen floor for an hour, talking through the real frustrations underneath the fight. By midnight, they had made up, and the bill — split evenly — was paid.

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Informal

On the night of November 9, 1989, East and West Germany were on the verge of something that had seemed impossible for twenty-eight years. The Berlin Wall, built in 1961, had physically and politically divided families, neighbors, and a nation. When East German authorities unexpectedly announced that citizens could cross the border freely, thousands of people flooded the checkpoints. Families who had been separated for decades embraced on Checkpoint Charlie and at the Brandenburg Gate. Siblings who had grown up on opposite sides of a concrete barrier — some who had not spoken in years, others who had never met their own relatives — stood together on the rubble of a wall being torn down by ordinary hands. The reunification process was not painless; economic and cultural tensions between East and West Germans persisted for years. But November 9 represented a genuine, historic turning point: a broken relationship between two halves of a people beginning the slow, difficult work of healing. It is one of history's most dramatic examples of what it means to make up — not just between two people, but between two entire ways of life.

To open up means to start talking honestly about your feelings, thoughts, or personal experiences, especially when this is difficult or you have been keeping them private. It often happens when someone feels safe, trusted, or ready to be vulnerable.

Type

Inseparable phrasal verb.

Notes

When 'open up' is used in the emotional sense, it is inseparable — no object is placed between 'open' and 'up'. You say 'She opened up to her sister,' not 'She opened her sister up.' The phrase can be followed by the preposition 'to' plus a person, or used alone without any object at all.

Conjugation

Narrative

Priya had worked alongside Marcus for two years without knowing much about him beyond his coffee order. One afternoon, a difficult team meeting left them both quiet in the break room. She mentioned that she'd been struggling too, and something shifted. Marcus set down his cup and, for the first time, began to open up — about the pressure he felt being the only person of color on their floor, about the exhaustion of always seeming fine. Priya listened without interrupting. By the time they returned to their desks, something between them had changed permanently.

Register

Neutral

In the spring of 1941, the British author C.S. Lewis began exchanging letters with a woman named Joy Davidman, who had written to him from New York about his work on faith and grief. Lewis, known for his sharp intellect and careful emotional reserve, had spent years constructing arguments rather than sharing personal vulnerability. Yet as the correspondence deepened over the following decade, and after Joy moved to England and they eventually married in 1956, something remarkable happened: Lewis, the great rationalist, began genuinely opening up. When Joy died of bone cancer in 1960, he recorded his raw, unfiltered grief in a private journal later published as 'A Grief Observed' — a book unlike anything he had written before, full of doubt, anger, and devastating honesty. He described the silence of God, the feeling of a door slammed shut, the way grief felt physical. It was not a theological argument. It was a man opening up. The episode reminds us that the most guarded people sometimes find one relationship, one moment of loss, that finally unlocks what they had been carrying alone.