Word.ws English Dictionary

runs afoul of

runs afoul of is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 runs afoul of

What is runs afoul of the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Runs afoul of is the third-person singular simple present indicative of run afoul of.

Words near runs afoul of in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: runs 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.

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