Word.ws English Dictionary

make all the running

make all the running is the alternative form of make the running.

Meaning of make the running

Verb

make the running (third-person singular simple present makes the running, present participle making the running, simple past and past participle made the running)

  1. (UK, idiomatic) To have a leading or influential position in a field or activity; to be more active than others.
    • He added: "In this period if you looked at the western world and asked who is making the running, from the point of view of modern society and particularly in terms of liberty, it would be Britain and we forget that. Britain is absolutely the model of the future."2014 April 7, Mark Brown, “Royal art show, The First Georgians, to open at Buckingham Palace”, in The Guardian
    Synonyms:
    set the pace

Forms of make all the running

third-person singular presentmakes all the running
present participlemaking all the running
past participlemade all the running
pastmade all the running

Questions about make all the running

What is make all the running the alternative form of?
Make all the running is the alternative form of make the running.

Words near make all the running in the dictionary

  1. make a virtue of necessity
  2. make a wrong turn at Albuquerque
  3. make after
  4. make against
  5. make all the difference
  6. make all the running
  7. make amends
  8. make an appearance
  9. make an ass of
  10. make an effort
  11. make an entrance

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: make all the running (page history and authors); make the running (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “make all the running.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/make_all_the_running. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.