Word.ws English Dictionary

runs riot

runs riot is the third-person singular simple present indicative of run riot.

Meaning of run riot

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To act in an uncontrolled, unbridled manner.
    • In their idea, there is scarcely a finer tree than the Kavika; and when in their fairy tales the imagination runs riot, and describes all that is lovely and beautiful, the Kavika is rarely omitted.1862, Berthold Seemann, Viti: an account of a government mission to the Vitian or Fijian Islands, in the years 1860-61, Cambridge: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, page 318
  2. (idiomatic) To be uncontrollable.
    • And it was only the defiance of Cech that kept a rampant Spurs at bay in the second half, producing a collection of outstanding saves to somehow keep Arsenal in contention as Pochettino's side threatened to run riot.2018 February 10, Phil McNulty, “Tottenham Hotspur 1 - 0 Arsenal”, in BBC

Questions about runs riot

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

Words near runs riot in the dictionary

  1. runs over
  2. runs past
  3. runs point
  4. runs rampant
  5. runs rings around
  6. runs riot
  7. runs roughshod over
  8. runs scared
  9. runs short
  10. runs someone off their feet
  11. runs someone ragged

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: runs riot (page history and authors); run riot (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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