Word.ws English Dictionary

running afoul of

running afoul of is the present participle and gerund of run afoul of.

Meaning of run afoul of

Verb

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

  1. To become entangled in; to run aground on.
  2. (idiomatic) To contravene.
    • When quoting others, take care not to run afoul of copyright rules.

Questions about running afoul of

What is running afoul of the present participle and gerund of?
Running afoul of is the present participle and gerund of run afoul of.

Words near running afoul of in the dictionary

  1. running a train
  2. running about
  3. running about with
  4. running across
  5. running adrift
  6. running afoul of
  7. running after
  8. running against
  9. running aground
  10. running ahead
  11. running along

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: running afoul of (page history and authors); run afoul of (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:

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