Word.ws English Dictionary

run afoul

run afoul verb: to become entangled or in conflict with.

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive, transitive) To become entangled or in conflict with.
    • At last we hove in sight of the Pacific, and run afoul one of those villainous head winds which you know often set into the west end of the Straits.1857, Thomas Jefferson Farnham, Life, Adventures, and Travels in California, page 407
    • Propellers can run afoul in heavy seaweed, and ships are said to be afoul when they collide.1995, James Laurence Pelletier, Mariner's Employment Guide, page 514

Forms of run afoul

third-person singular presentruns afoul
present participlerunning afoul
pastran afoul
past participlerun afoul

Questions about run afoul

What does run afoul mean?
Run afoul means to become entangled or in conflict with.
What part of speech is run afoul?
Run afoul is a verb.
What is the past tense of run afoul?
The past tense of run afoul is ran afoul.

Words near run afoul in the dictionary

  1. run a train
  2. run about
  3. run about with
  4. run across
  5. run adrift
  6. run afoul
  7. run afoul of
  8. run after
  9. run against
  10. run aground
  11. run ahead

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: run afoul (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: “run afoul.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/run_afoul. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.