Word.ws English Dictionary

run to seed

run to seed is the alternative form of go to seed.

Meaning of go to seed

Verb

go to seed (third-person singular simple present goes to seed, present participle going to seed, simple past went to seed, past participle gone to seed)

  1. To pass from flowering or ripening to the formation of seeds.
    • Wild tomatoes, which had gone to seed or been remorselessly hoed out from the beginning of Berande, were foraged for salads, soups, and sauces.1911, Jack London, Adventure
  2. (broadly, figuratively) To deteriorate; to decline into an unkempt or debased condition.
    • But the "frump" will let herself and all her surroundings go to seed, not from humbleness of mind or an overwhelming sense of her own unworthiness, but in pure complacent conceit.1898, Eliot Gregory, Worldly Ways and Byways

Forms of run to seed

third-person singular presentruns to seed
present participlerunning to seed
pastran to seed
past participlerun to seed

Questions about run to seed

What is run to seed the alternative form of?
Run to seed is the alternative form of go to seed.

Words near run to seed in the dictionary

  1. run times
  2. run to
  3. run to earth
  4. run to fat
  5. run to ground
  6. run to seed
  7. run to the ground
  8. run to the hills
  9. run to waste
  10. run up
  11. run up against

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: run to seed (page history and authors); go to seed (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 to seed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/run_to_seed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.