Word.ws English Dictionary

running late

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

Meaning of run late

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To be late; to fail to be on time.
    • When the clocks are put forward at the introduction of summer time, the long-distance night trains automatically become one hour late, and continue to run late for the remainder of their journeys. […] Similarly, when the clocks are put back in the autumn, the night trains become one hour early.1951 June, “The Why and the Wherefore: Railways and Summer Time”, in Railway Magazine, page 429

Questions about running late

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

Words near running late in the dictionary

  1. running jokes
  2. running knot
  3. running knots
  4. running lane
  5. running lanes
  6. running late
  7. running light
  8. running lights
  9. running like a dry creek
  10. running like a top
  11. running line

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: running late (page history and authors); run late (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: “running late.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/running_late. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.