Idiom
Catch-22
A catch-22 is a situation you can't escape because the rules contradict each other: to get one thing you need another, and to get that you need the first.
How people use it
People use catch-22 for frustrating loops, often caused by rules, forms or official requirements. The classic everyday example: you need experience to get a job, but you need a job to get experience. You can say "it's a catch-22," "a real catch-22" or "a catch-22 situation." Dictionaries usually list it in lowercase, while the novel it comes from is capitalized, so both spellings are common. It is more specific than a dilemma: a dilemma is a hard choice between options, while a catch-22 means the rules themselves make success impossible.
Also said: a catch-22 situation.
Examples
- You need a credit history to get a credit card, but you need a card to build a history: it's a catch-22.
- Finding an apartment without a local job, and a job without a local address, felt like a total catch-22.
- The app sends the login code only after you log in, which is a classic catch-22.
Where it comes from
It comes from Joseph Heller's 1961 novel Catch-22, about American airmen in World War II. In the book, a pilot can be excused from dangerous missions if he is insane, but asking to be excused proves he is sane, so he must keep flying. That made-up military rule is the original catch-22. The novel was so widely read that its title became an everyday expression within a few years.
Check yourself
1. What is a catch-22?
Answer: A situation where contradictory rules block every way out. A catch-22 is a no-win loop: each requirement depends on another that you can't get first.
2. Which sentence uses catch-22 correctly?
Answer: I can't get a permit without a lease or a lease without a permit, so it's a catch-22.. The first sentence describes two requirements that block each other, which is exactly a catch-22.
Similar idioms
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