Word.ws English Dictionary

ran dry

ran dry is the simple past of run dry.

Meaning of run dry

Verb

run dry (third-person singular simple present runs dry, present participle running dry, simple past ran dry, past participle run dry)

  1. (literally) To become dry; to cease to flow with water.
    • Last summer the river ran dry.
  2. (figuratively) To run out; to be fully consumed; to expire.
    • The beer soon ran dry so we cracked open a bottle of wine.

Questions about ran dry

What is ran dry the simple past of?
Ran dry is the simple past of run dry.

Words near ran dry in the dictionary

  1. ran circles around
  2. ran counter
  3. ran deep
  4. ran down
  5. ran down the clock
  6. ran dry
  7. ran errands
  8. ran for cover
  9. ran for it
  10. ran for one's life
  11. ran for the exercise

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ran dry (page history and authors); run dry (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: “ran dry.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ran_dry. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.