cascading update

For relationships enforcing referential integrity between tables, an option that causes a change to the primary key in a record in the primary table to automatically update the foreign key in all related records in the related foreign table or tables.

For example, suppose you establish a relationship between a Customers (primary) table and an Orders (foreign) table with the cascading update option enabled. When the primary key in a record in the Customers table is changed, all orders associated with that customer would also be changed in the foreign Orders table.