run with

English

Pronunciation

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Verb

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

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see run,‎ with.

   The thief was running with the purse in his hands.

2. To follow something through to completion or realization.
   • 2006, David I. Cleland, Lewis R. Ireland, Project management: strategic design and implementation, page 83:

     3M's culture and its organizational structure are all directed to encouraging its people to take an idea and run with it.

3. (US, informal) To be a member of (a gang, hooligan firm, etc.); to associate with a, typically disreputable, individual or group.
   • 1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 01:

     The Bat—they called him the Bat. […]. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.

   • 2011, Carl L. Adams, Wanted: Lost Souls, page 59:

     For about three years, I ran with several different gangs.

   • 2012, John O'Kane, Celtic Soccer Crew:

     Some of these wannabe hooligans ran with the Celtic Soccer Crew for a number of years without ever being arrested or suffering as much as a broken nail.

4. To be streaming with a fluid.

   After a long run, his face was running with sweat.

   The streets were running with rain water.

5. To take an incomplete or inadequate (plan, text, etc.) and develop it further, often with the implication of carelessness.

   They took this three-second sound bite and ran with it to try to smear me.