runner
Pluralrunners
- 1Someone who covers ground quickly on foot, particularly as an athlete.
The lead runner pulled away from the pack on the final hill.
Marathon runners pace themselves carefully over the long distance.
Note
The sense every other one grows from: runner is simply run plus -er, in Middle English rennere or rynner. It pushed out an older word, Old English rynel, which meant both "runner" and "messenger, courier." Old Norse rennari carried the same pair of meanings, so the errand-running of the messenger sense is no late extension. It has stood beside racing from the start.
- 2A person, animal, or especially a horse entered in a race or competition; also a candidate standing for election.
The favorite runner pulled up lame before the final turn.
She was the strongest runner in the senate race that year.
Similarentrant, competitor, contender, candidate, starter
- 3A long, narrow carpet laid in a high-traffic area such as a hallway or staircase.
A worn runner stretched the length of the upstairs corridor.
She chose a patterned runner for the entryway floor.
- 4A restaurant worker whose job is carrying food from the kitchen out to the tables.
As a runner, he spent the dinner rush ferrying dishes to packed tables.
The new runner dropped off our food and dashed back to the pass.
Note
Restaurants divide the work of a meal, and the runner's share is carrying. The Daily News in 1897 counted waiters per guest "with runners, of course." Caterer & Hotelkeeper in 1989 shows where the line between the jobs falls: the waiter handles the order, and if the waiter forgets it, "a runner can cover and serve."
- 5A long stolon that a plant such as the strawberry sends out to root new plantlets; also a plant that spreads by producing them.
Each runner crept across the soil and took root a few inches away.
Spider plants spread by dropping plantlets from their runners.
Similarstolon
Note
Botany pairs runner with stolon, the more technical term for the same creeping shoot. The word also does double duty: it names the shoot and also the plant that spreads by it. A strawberry both sends out runners and counts as one.
- 6A person sent on errands or to carry messages, especially for a bank; historically, a soldier who carried messages during war.
A runner carried the dispatch through enemy lines under cover of darkness.
The firm employed a runner to ferry documents between its two branches.
Note
The messenger meaning is older than the modern word itself. The Old English rynel, which runner displaced, already meant "messenger, courier", and the Old Norse cognate rennari meant "runner; messenger". Today it works as a job title: one works as a runner for a bank or a firm, as Wayne Jancik's The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders (1990) records of an accounting firm in 1963. In wartime it named the soldier who carried messages.
- 7A mechanical part that guides something else as it moves, or helps it move, by rolling on wheels or by sliding.
The barn-style door hangs from two runners that roll along a steel track above the opening.
Grease the runner every few months, or the sliding gate will start to stick.
Note
Here run + -er names a thing rather than a person, and the thing can sit on either side of the motion. On a sliding door the runner is the wheeled piece that travels along a track, much as a sledge rides on its runners; in a desk, the drawer runner is the fixed channel the drawer slides in. Context, not the word, tells you which half is meant.
- 8
- 9A person or vessel that slips through blockades or carries smuggled goods.
A sleek runner carried cotton through the wartime blockade.
The navy seized two runners loaded with contraband off the coast.
Similarsmuggler
Note
A sense that lives mostly inside compounds, where the cargo comes first. Gunrunner is written solid, while Hamendar Bhisham Pal's The Plunder of Art (1992) writes "idol and antique runners" open. Used alone, the word covers both the smuggler and the vessel. In compounds, the first word says what is being moved past the law.
- 10The curved length of wood at the base of a rocking chair on which it rocks.
A loose runner made the rocker tip awkwardly to one side.
He sanded the curved runners until the chair rocked smoothly again.
Similarrocker
- 11The metal blade fixed to the bottom of an ice skate.
A nick in the runner sent the skater wobbling across the rink.
The skate's runners glided cleanly over the fresh ice.
Similarblade
- 12A smooth strip on the underside of a sled that lets it slide over snow.
A bent runner made the sled veer to the left.
Polished runners helped the sled glide faster downhill.
Note
The sled's runner heads a family of guiding parts: the blade of an ice skate, the track of a drawer and the curved base of a rocking chair. Each is the part that lets something else move by sliding or rolling. The name fits because here the part, not a person, does the running.
- 13A baseball or softball player who has reached base and may advance around the bases.
The runner tagged up and sprinted home after the catch.
With runners on first and third, the manager called for a bunt.
Note
Baseball's runner is a clipped baserunner: a batter who has reached a base and now plays a different game, trying to advance. The word travels with its positions, as in "runners on first and third" or "the runner was out at second." The bases are named by number alone, without the word base.
- 14
- 15A sudden escape from a scene, usually to avoid paying or being caught; also the person who flees.
The diners did a runner before the check reached the table.
Spotting the inspector, the fare-dodger did a runner down the platform.
Similarbunk
Note
The noun almost always comes in the slang phrase "do a runner," where it names the act of bolting. It then stretches to the people who bolt. In 2018, Loch Fyne staff "had to cover runners" who slipped outside on the pretext of smoking. Unlike the deserter, this runner is usually escaping a bill or a crime, not a duty.
- 16A strip of fabric laid across a table or dressing table to decorate or protect it.
A red runner ran the length of the holiday table.
She embroidered a runner for the dressing table by the window.
- 17A soft-soled shoe of the kind originally designed for runners.
She slipped off one runner to shake a pebble out of it.
Their muddy runners were lined up neatly by the back door.
Note
Across Australia, Canada, Ireland and Scotland, this is the everyday name for a soft-soled athletic shoe, the same thing other speakers call a sneaker or a trainer. It turns up naturally in the plural, for a pair: "runners that are bright yellow and exuberant," as Elaine Feeney writes in How to Build a Boat (2023). Context keeps it apart from the person who runs: you lace runners up, you don't race them.
- 18A joke or gag that recurs repeatedly throughout a performance, series, or piece of writing.
The show's best runner involved a door that never quite closed.
Writers planted a runner in the pilot and paid it off in the finale.
Note
The word clips running gag, and it can stretch past comedy. Jesse Hassenger, reviewing Don't Look Up in 2021, praises "an inspired runner about" a scandal-plagued nominee. Sam Lansky's 2023 Time profile of Taylor Swift calls a fairy-tale promise of love "a runner" in her songwriting. There it means a recurring theme, not a joke. It usually takes about or in.
- 19A working car that starts, runs, and can be driven.
Despite the rust, the old Mini is a reliable runner.
She advertised the van as a daily runner with a fresh engine.
Note
Slang that asks the most basic question about a car: does it run? "Is that old Mercedes a runner?" can be answered "No, it has no gearbox." Sellers lean on it in phrases like "a nice little runner," where it promises a car that works, not one that impresses.
- 20A person who controls or manages something, such as a system or operation.
The runners of the fantasy football league keep a small fee from each entry to pay for the website.
As the runner of the family business, she made every final decision.
Similarmanager, operator, organizer
Note
The noun behind run in "run a business" or "run a scheme": the one who operates something, not the one who moves. It usually comes with of, and the thing being run follows as its object. Daniel Jonathan Kirk, posting to aus.legal in 1998, describes money "kept for the runners of the system."
- 21An idea or plan judged to have a genuine chance of being adopted or put into practice.
The committee decided the recycling scheme was a runner and funded it.
Only one of the three pitches turned out to be a genuine runner.
Similargoer, contender, possibility
Oppositenon-starter
Note
An idea that is a runner is still in the race, much like an entrant in a competition. The sense is predicative, as in "is it a runner?" It often appears in the negative as a quick verdict that a plan should be dropped: "This idea isn't a runner."
- 22A player who attempts to complete a video game, or part of one, as quickly as possible.
The runner shaved two seconds off the world record with a risky shortcut.
Top runners memorize every glitch that saves a fraction of a second.
Note
Video-game players clip speedrunner to runner, so the race survives inside the word even though the course is a game. Out of context, the short form can be taken for an athlete. Speedrunner is the safer choice for a general audience.
- 23A short sling with a carabiner at each end, used to connect the climbing rope to a bolt or other piece of protection.
She extended the placement with a runner to reduce rope drag.
Each runner on his harness was color-coded by length.
Similarquickdraw
Note
Climbers place runners between the rope and the protection: a bolt, a nut, or a friend. In this company, a friend is a piece of gear, not a companion. The carabiner at each end is what makes the sling a runner, with one end taking the protection and the other the rope.
- 24A junior assistant on a film, television, or broadcast production who carries out errands and small tasks.
The runner delivered the rushes to the editing suite before lunch.
Most directors started out as a runner making tea on set.
Similargofer, dogsbody, assistant
Note
Film and television crews use runner as a job title for their most junior helper, a clear descendant of the messenger sense. The word names a post, not a habit of moving fast. You can be the runner on a quiet set and never break into a jog.
- 25In cricket, a player who runs between the wickets on behalf of a batsman too injured to run, dressed identically and carrying a bat.
With a torn hamstring, the captain batted on while a runner did the sprinting.
The umpire checked that the runner wore the same pads as the injured batsman.
Note
Cricket's runner does the running but none of the batting. The injured batsman still plays the shot, and the substitute covers the ground between the wickets for him. The identical dress and the bat in hand let the runner stand in for the batsman's legs. Do not confuse him with the baseball runner, who is the batter himself, now on base.
- 26A person employed by a gambling establishment to find potential customers and bring them in.
The club's runner trawled the hotel bars for wealthy gamblers.
She earned a commission as a runner for an underground poker room.
Similartout
Note
Gambling has a whole vocabulary for the person who brings in the customers: roper, steerer, picker-up and lugger, with runner among them. The job matches the work of the sports agent's recruiter in another trade. In both, someone finds people and delivers them to whoever profits from their arrival.
- 27In Australian rules football, a team official who runs onto the field during play to relay the coach's instructions to players, without interfering with play and often wearing an identifying shirt.
- 28A person employed by a sports agent to recruit prospective player clients on the agent's behalf.
- 29A competitor taking part in a poker tournament.
- 30A section of a cigarette that burns unevenly, faster down one side than the other.
- 31A prisoner trusted with extra freedom and small jobs, often carrying messages around the prison.
In our prisons you might find a condemned man working as a runner, a trusty, which is about as far from segregation as you can get.
1959, Frederick S. Baldi, My Unwelcome Guests - 32A strip sewn to the lower edge of a shoe's upper so that the sole can be cemented to it.
- 33A sliding rail or part that lets a component be drawn out of a machine for servicing.
- 34In saddlery, a metal ring or loop that a rein slides through.
- 35A groove in a mold that carries molten metal or plastic to the cavity.
- 36The millstone that turns in a grinding mill, usually the upper one, working against a fixed stone.
- 37The sliding collar on an umbrella's shaft that holds the ribs and opens or closes them.
- 38A holder to which lenses are fixed while they are being ground and polished.
- 39A sleek game fish of warm Atlantic waters, Elagatis bipinnulata, known for leaping, also called the rainbow runner.
- 40A rope rove through an extra block to multiply the pulling force of a tackle.
- 41A small stream or brook.
- 42A vessel used to carry fish or oysters from the fishing grounds to market.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English rennere (also rynner, urnare), equivalent to run + -er, and cognate with Old Norse rennari ("runner; messenger"). It replaced the earlier Middle English runel, from Old English rynel ("runner; messenger, courier").