Word.ws English Dictionary

runholder

Syllables: run·hold·erUK/ˈɹʌnhəʊldə/US/ˈɹʌnˌhoʊldəɹ/

runholder noun: a person who leases or owns a run (“rural landholding for farming”), especially one for raising sheep.

Noun

runholder (plural runholders)

  1. (New Zealand) A person who leases or owns a run (“rural landholding for farming”), especially one for raising sheep.
    • Edward Stafford […] was a member of the Anglo-Irish gentry and had arrived in Nelson in 1843 to become a runholder.2003, Michael King, The Penguin History of Aotearoa New Zealand, Penguin, published 2023, page 193

Forms of runholder

pluralrunholders

Origin of runholder

From run (“rural landholding for farming, usually for running sheep”) + holder. Run (noun) is derived from run (“(chiefly Australia, New Zealand) to allow (cattle, sheep, etc.) to graze and move freely on land; to raise (livestock)”, verb).

Questions about runholder

What does runholder mean?
Runholder means a person who leases or owns a run (“rural landholding for farming”), especially one for raising sheep.
What part of speech is runholder?
Runholder is a noun.
How do you pronounce runholder?
Runholder is pronounced /ˈɹʌnhəʊldə/ (UK).
What is the plural of runholder?
The plural of runholder is runholders.

Words near runholder in the dictionary

  1. Runglish
  2. rungs
  3. rungu
  4. rungus
  5. Rungwa
  6. runholder
  7. runholders
  8. runholding
  9. runholdings
  10. runic
  11. runic divination

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: runholder (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-runholder.ogg.

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