running

RUN-ing/ˈɹʌniŋ/

Noun pluralrunnings (some meanings)

19 meanings of running

1
verb
Present participle and gerund of run.
Water was running down the windowpane all night.
Running a small business takes more patience than money.
Note
A single -ing form does two jobs here. As a participle it builds the progressive with be: the tap is running, the engine was running all night. As a gerund it acts like a noun but still takes the verb's object directly: running a shop, running the engine overnight. Once it takes an article, an of-phrase or the plural runnings, as in the running of the hotel, it has become the full noun.
2
noununcountable
The activity of moving quickly on foot, whether as exercise, as a competitive sport, or for any other reason.
Running has grown into one of the most popular forms of exercise in the country.
Her years of competitive running ended with a knee injury in college.
Similarjogging, racing
3
noununcountable
The action of the verb to run, in any of its senses, such as moving quickly, flowing, or operating.
Responsibility for the day-to-day running of the hotel passed to the eldest daughter.
Quiet running was the new engine's main selling point.
Similaroperation, management, administration, functioning, working
4
adjective
Continuous or ongoing; kept up steadily, step by step, as events unfold.
The senator's aide kept a running tally of the votes as they came in.
Their running feud over the property line lasted a decade.
Similarongoing, continuous, constant, perpetual
Note
Here the word describes something kept up without letting go, and its natural home is talk: a running commentary, a running explanation, a running theory. Julius Hare's Guesses at Truth (1826) asks what art and science are "if not a running commentary on Nature." Older uses reached further. Milton's History of Britain (1670) has a running conquest, and John Hamilton Moore's Collection of Voyages and Travels (1778) has a running fire, a volley kept up steadily.
5
adjective
Belonging to the present time; current.
Interest is calculated on the balance for the running month.
The report covers the running quarter, not the one just closed.
Similarcurrent, present
Oppositepast, previous
6
adjective
Flowing and easy; of handwriting, cursive, with the letters joined in a continuous line.
The old deed was written in a fine running hand.
His prose has a running ease that carries the reader along.
Similarcursive, flowing, fluent
7
adjective
Moving or advancing at a run, or performed while moving at a run.
The long jumper builds speed with a running approach down the strip.
The receiver made a running catch near the sideline.
Oppositestanding
8
adverbcolloquial
Consecutively; one after another in unbroken succession.
The festival sold out for the fifth year running.
She has topped the sales charts three quarters running.
Similarstraight, consecutively, successively
9
adjective
Having a design or pattern that continues unbroken along a length or around a surface.
The frieze carries a running motif of vines and grapes.
A running Greek-key border frames the mosaic floor.
Similarcontinuous, unbroken, repeating
10
nouncolloquialuncountable
The act of going from place to place to carry out errands.
Saturday's running took her to the pharmacy, the post office, and the dry cleaner.
He does most of the family's running now that his mother can't drive.
Similarerrands

11
adjective
Discharging snot or mucus, as a nose during a cold or allergy.
She kept tissues handy for her running nose all through flu season.
His allergies left him sneezing, with running eyes by lunchtime.
Similarrunny
Note
With noses, everyday English has a choice of form: a running nose or a runny nose, and runny is its direct synonym. Running works the same way as the "running sore" sense, since the body part is described by what flows from it. Unlike runny, it extends readily to running eyes.
12
adjective
Consecutive; following one immediately after another without a break, as in a series of days, games, or events.
The choir performed on five running nights during the festival.
Three running victories put the club at the top of the standings.
Similarconsecutive, successive, straight, uninterrupted
Note
Before the noun, this sense is the less common choice. Three running years is correct, but English far more often says three years running, where the adverb follows the count. Both mean the same thing: nothing broke the series. Only the word order decides the part of speech. For natural everyday phrasing, put running after the noun: the fifth year running, three nights running.
13
nouncountable or uncountable
Liquid that flows from a source, or the quantity of liquid that flows during a given time or operation.
The running from the cider press filled two forty-gallon barrels by evening.
The night's running from the tapped maples was hauled to the sugarhouse at dawn.
Similarflow, yield, outflow, output
Note
Distillers and other liquid trades count their yield this way. The first running of a still is what comes off at the start, and each later operation gives its own running. Because each batch is a separate running, the word takes a plural easily here: the runnings of a press or a still. That plural is something the activity noun for exercise rarely needs.
14
prepositioncolloquial
Approaching or roughly equal to; used informally before a stated measurement, age, or amount.
The guide promised lake trout running ten pounds or better.
She took over the shop from her aunt, a sharp woman running seventy.
15
adjective
Of a horse, galloping rather than trotting or pacing; not a trotter or pacer.
The afternoon card featured running horses, with the trotters scheduled for evening.
Quarter Horses were first bred as running horses for short, explosive races.
16
adjective
Of a plant, extending by a slender stem that climbs or trails.
Running blackberry spreads quickly across cleared ground.
The running stems of the strawberry plants rooted wherever they touched soil.
Similartrailing, climbing, rambling
Note
Botany uses it for a plant's way of growing, not for speed. A running vine or a running blackberry spreads by long, slender stems instead of standing upright. The word covers both directions, the stem that trails across the ground and the one that climbs a support. On its own, then, it does not say which. Add trailing or climbing when the difference matters.
17
adjective
Discharging pus, as an infected sore or wound that has not healed.
The running sore on his ankle refused to heal despite weeks of care.
Left untreated, the blister became a running wound.
Note
Medicine and ordinary speech share this sense, mostly in one fixed phrase: a running sore. Clinical writing tends to prefer suppurating or discharging, while running is the plain word for a sore that will not close. The fluid itself has its own name, the noun for the discharge, so the sore is running and what comes from it is the running.
18
noununcountable
The fluid discharged from an ulcer or other sore that has not healed.
The nurse changed the dressing twice a day to absorb the running from the ulcer.
After a week of treatment, the running from the wound had nearly stopped.
Similardischarge, pus, drainage, seepage, ooze
19
noununcountable
The variation of a measured physical quantity, especially a coupling constant, with the energy scale at which it is measured, arising from higher-order interaction effects.
The running of the strong coupling means quarks interact more weakly at extremely high energies.
Measurements at particle colliders have confirmed the predicted running of the fine-structure constant.
Note
Physicists borrowed the everyday verb for a number that will not stay fixed. A coupling constant is said to run as the energy of the probe changes, and its drift is its running. Despite the word constant, such a value holds steady only at its low-energy, macroscopic limit. At higher energies, higher-order interactions pull it away.

running is a form of run

run, verb: To move quickly on foot, faster than walking, as people and many animals do; also, to cover a distance or take part in a race in this way. Full entry

Forms: run also past participleruns he/she/itrunning -ing formran past tense
Spelling: run → running: double the n, add -ing

Practice

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Origin

Formed from "run" combined with the suffix "-ing".