runners
- 1Plural of runner.
Marathon runners trained through the cold winter months.
Strawberry plants spread by sending out runners across the soil.
Note
The ordinary plural, made with a plain -s, and it carries every sense of the singular: athletes on a track, horses entered in a race, candidates for office, poker players in a tournament, blockade runners and smugglers, even the cricketer who runs for an injured batsman. The same spelling also names footwear in some regions, the word for running shoes, which in that use has no singular at all.
- 2Shoes with soft, flexible soles designed for running or casual everyday wear.
He kicked off his muddy runners at the back door.
A good pair of runners makes all the difference on a long walk.
Note
A regional word for everyday athletic footwear, at home in Ireland, Australia, British Columbia and the Canadian Prairies, where other speakers reach for sneakers or trainers. It behaves as a plural-only noun: you buy a pair of runners or kick off your runners. The singular a runner still means a person or animal in motion, never one shoe.
runners is a form of runner
runner, noun: Someone who covers ground quickly on foot, particularly as an athlete. Full entry
- Forms
- runnerrunners plural
- Spelling
- runner → runners: add -s
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /z/.
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