Word.ws English Dictionary

run late

run late verb: to be late; to fail to be on time.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To be late; to fail to be on time.
    • When the clocks are put forward at the introduction of summer time, the long-distance night trains automatically become one hour late, and continue to run late for the remainder of their journeys. […] Similarly, when the clocks are put back in the autumn, the night trains become one hour early.1951 June, “The Why and the Wherefore: Railways and Summer Time”, in Railway Magazine, page 429

Forms of run late

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

Questions about run late

What does run late mean?
Run late means to be late; to fail to be on time.
What part of speech is run late?
Run late is a verb.
What is the past tense of run late?
The past tense of run late is ran late.

Words near run late in the dictionary

  1. run into one
  2. run into the ground
  3. run it up
  4. run it up the flagpole, to see who salutes
  5. run its course
  6. run late
  7. run like a dry creek
  8. run like a top
  9. run lines
  10. run low
  11. run mad

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: run late (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-run late.ogg.

Cite this entry: “run late.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/run_late. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.