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The Gutenberg Webster's Unabridged Dictionary: Section R · Project Gutenberg — chapter 455 of 470 · ~879 words · public domain

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(q) To continue without falling due; to hold good; as, a note has thirty days to run. (r) To discharge pus or other matter; as, an ulcer runs. (s) To be played on the stage a number of successive days or nights; as, the piece ran for six months. (t) (Naut.) To sail before the wind, in distinction from reaching or sailing closehauled; -- said of vessels.

4. Specifically, of a horse: To move rapidly in a gait in which each leg acts in turn as a propeller and a supporter, and in which for an instant all the limbs are gathered in the air under the body. Stillman (The Horse in Motion).

5. (Athletics) To move rapidly by springing steps so that there is an instant in each step when neither foot touches the ground; -- so distinguished from walking in athletic competition.

As things run, according to the usual order, conditions, quality, etc.; on the average; without selection or specification. -- To let run (Naut.), to allow to pass or move freely; to slacken or loosen. -- To run after, to pursue or follow; to search for; to endeavor to find or obtain; as, to run after similes. Locke. -- To run away, to flee; to escape; to elope; to run without control or guidance. -- To run away with. (a) To convey away hurriedly; to accompany in escape or elopement. (b) To drag rapidly and with violence; as, a horse runs away with a carriage. -- To run down. (a) To cease to work or operate on account of the exhaustion of the motive power; -- said of clocks, watches, etc. (b) To decline in condition; as, to run down in health. -- To run down a coast, to sail along it. -- To run for an office, to stand as a candidate for an office. -- To run in or into. (a) To enter; to step in. (b) To come in collision with. -- To run in trust, to run in debt; to get credit. [Obs.] -- To run in with. (a) To close; to comply; to agree with. [R.] T. Baker. (b) (Naut.) To make toward; to near; to sail close to; as, to run in with the land. -- To run mad, To run mad after or on. See under Mad. -- To run on. (a) To be continued; as, their accounts had run on for a year or two without a settlement. (b) To talk incessantly. (c) To continue a course. (d) To press with jokes or ridicule; to abuse with sarcasm; to bear hard on. (e) (Print.) To be continued in the same lines, without making a break or beginning a new paragraph. -- To run out. (a) To come to an end; to expire; as, the lease runs out at Michaelmas. (b) To extend; to spread. "Insectile animals . . . run all out into legs." Hammond. (c) To expatiate; as, to run out into beautiful digressions. (d) To be wasted or exhausted; to become poor; to become extinct; as, an estate managed without economy will soon run out.

And had her stock been less, no doubt She must have long ago run out.

Dryden.

-- To run over. (a) To overflow; as, a cup runs over, or the liquor runs over. (b) To go over, examine, or rehearse cursorily. (c) To ride or drive over; as, to run over a child. -- To run riot, to go to excess. -- To run through. (a) To go through hastily; as to run through a book. (b) To spend wastefully; as, to run through an estate. -- To run to seed, to expend or exhaust vitality in producing seed, as a plant; figuratively and colloquially, to cease growing; to lose vital force, as the body or mind. -- To run up, to rise; to swell; to grow; to increase; as, accounts of goods credited run up very fast.

But these, having been untrimmed for many years, had run up into great bushes, or rather dwarf trees.

Sir W. Scott.

-- To run with. (a) To be drenched with, so that streams flow; as, the streets ran with blood. (b) To flow while charged with some foreign substance. "Its rivers ran with gold." J. H. Newman.

Run (&?;), v. t. 1. To cause to run (in the various senses of Run, v. i.); as, to run a horse; to run a stage; to run a machine; to run a rope through a block.

2. To pursue in thought; to carry in contemplation.

To run the world back to its first original.

South.

I would gladly understand the formation of a soul, and run it up to its "punctum saliens."

Collier.

3. To cause to enter; to thrust; as, to run a sword into or through the body; to run a nail into the foot.

You run your head into the lion's mouth.

Sir W. Scott.

Having run his fingers through his hair.

Dickens.

4. To drive or force; to cause, or permit, to be driven.

They ran the ship aground.

Acts xxvii. 41.

A talkative person runs himself upon great inconveniences by blabbing out his own or other's secrets.

Ray.

Others, accustomed to retired speculations, run natural philosophy into metaphysical notions.

Locke.

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