Word.ws English Dictionary

run up against

run up against verb: to begin to encounter problems with (someone or something).

Verb

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

  1. (transitive) To begin to encounter problems with (someone or something).
    • The latest model has run up against the limits of its technical capacity.

Forms of run up against

third-person singular presentruns up against
present participlerunning up against
pastran up against
past participlerun up against

Questions about run up against

What does run up against mean?
Run up against means to begin to encounter problems with (someone or something).
What part of speech is run up against?
Run up against is a verb.
What is the past tense of run up against?
The past tense of run up against is ran up against.

Words near run up against in the dictionary

  1. run to seed
  2. run to the ground
  3. run to the hills
  4. run to waste
  5. run up
  6. run up against
  7. run up in
  8. run up in it
  9. run up on
  10. run up the score
  11. run upon sorts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: run up against (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 up against.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/run_up_against. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.