"Ha, ha, the fox!" and after him they ran. Chaucer.

(b)

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.

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.

You run your head into the lion's mouth. Sir W. Scott.

Having run his fingers through his hair. Dickens.

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.

The purest gold must be run and washed. Felton.

Heavy impositions . . . are a strong temptation of running goods. Swift.

He would himself be in the Highlands to receive them, and run his fortune with them. Clarendon.

At the base of Pompey's statua,
Which all the while ran blood, great Cæsar fell. Shak.

To run a blockade, to get to, or away from, a blockaded port in safety. -- To run down. (a) (Hunting) To chase till the object pursued is captured or exhausted; as, to run down a stag. (b) (Naut.) To run against and sink, as a vessel. (c) To crush; to overthrow; to overbear. "Religion is run down by the license of these times." Berkeley. (d) To disparage; to traduce. F. W. Newman. -- To run hard. (a) To press in competition; as, to run one hard in a race. (b) To urge or press importunately. (c) To banter severely. - - To run into the ground, to carry to an absurd extreme; to overdo. [Slang, U.S.] -- To run off, to cause to flow away, as a charge of molten metal from a furnace. -- To run on (Print.), to carry on or continue, as the type for a new sentence, without making a break or commencing a new paragraph. -- To run out. (a) To thrust or push out; to extend. (b) To waste; to exhaust; as, to run out an estate. (c) (Baseball) To put out while running between two bases. -- To run the chances, or one's chances, to encounter all the risks of a certain course. -- To run through, to transfix; to pierce, as with a sword. "[He] was run through the body by the man who had asked his advice." Addison. -- To run up. (a) To thrust up, as anything long and slender. (b) To increase; to enlarge by additions, as an account. (c) To erect hastily, as a building.

They who made their arrangements in the first run of misadventure . . . put a seal on their calamities. Burke.

It is impossible for detached papers to have a general run, or long continuance, if not diversified with humor. Addison.

A canting, mawkish play . . . had an immense run. Macaulay.

I think of giving her a run in London. Dickens.

The "runs" are made from wicket to wicket, the batsmen interchanging ends at each run. R. A. Proctor.

At the long run, now, commonly, In the long run, in or during the whole process or course of things taken together; in the final result; in the end; finally.

[Man] starts the inferior of the brute animals, but he surpasses them in the long run. J. H. Newman.

-- Home run. (a) A running or returning toward home, or to the point from which the start was made. Cf. Home stretch. (b) (Baseball) See under Home. -- The run, or The common run, etc., ordinary persons; the generality or average of people or things; also, that which ordinarily occurs; ordinary current, course, or kind.

I saw nothing else that is superior to the common run of parks. Walpole.

Burns never dreamed of looking down on others as beneath him, merely because he was conscious of his own vast superiority to the common run of men. Prof. Wilson.

His whole appearance was something out of the common run. W. Irving.

-- To let go by the run (Naut.), to loosen and let run freely, as lines; to let fall without restraint, as a sail.

Run steel, malleable iron castings. See under Malleable. Raymond.