Word.ws English Dictionary

runabout

runabout noun: any of several small vehicles, especially a small motor car for use on short journeys.

Noun

runabout (plural runabouts)

  1. Any of several small vehicles, especially a small motor car for use on short journeys.
    • The door being open, Stranleigh walked in unannounced. A two-seated runabout[…]stood by the window, where it could be viewed by passers-by. Further down the room rested a chassis, […]1913, Robert Barr, chapter 2, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad
  2. (dated) A motor car having a single row of seats.
  3. (historical) A light, open, American horse-drawn vehicle with four large wheels.
  4. (archaic) A gadabout or vagabond.
  5. A small, relatively maneuverable spacecraft or shuttlecraft.

Forms of runabout

pluralrunabouts

Origin of runabout

Deverbal from run about.

Questions about runabout

What does runabout mean?
Runabout means any of several small vehicles, especially a small motor car for use on short journeys.
What part of speech is runabout?
Runabout is a noun.
What is the plural of runabout?
The plural of runabout is runabouts.

Words near runabout in the dictionary

  1. run-walk
  2. run-walked
  3. run-walking
  4. run-walks
  5. runable
  6. runabout
  7. runabouts
  8. runagate
  9. runagates
  10. runahead
  11. runaholic

Source and license

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