running around

Verb

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

1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To be very busy doing many different things.
   • I don't want to run around all week getting everything ready for the holidays.
2. (idiomatic, intransitive) To go from place to place.
   • “A very welcome, kind, useful present, that means to the parish. By the way, Hopkins, let this go no further. We don't want the tale running round that a rich person has arrived. Churchill, my dear fellow, we have such greedy sharks, and wolves in lamb's clothing.[…]”1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
3. To move from one end of the consist to the other, so as to pull the train in the opposite direction.
4. (slang) To cheat; to be unfaithful to a romantic partner.
5. To change one's position on the court to hit a forehand rather than a backhand, or vice versa.
   • He'd gotten into tremendous shape so that he could run around his backhand and avoid hitting it altogether. He even tried a left-handed forehand. That was how desperate he was.2006, Greg Moran, Tennis Beyond Big Shots, →ISBN, page 71
6. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see run, around.
   • The children ran around in the playground.

   Synonyms:

   run about

See all 7 meanings of run around