run n.
1. (UK/US Und.) time spent out of prison.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | London and its Criminals 8: Most crooks know they cannot evade capture indefinitely and many of them consider a year’s ‘run’ quite good. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | et al. DAUL 182/2: Run. A period. of criminal activity before arrest and conviction or between prison terms. |
2. among outlaw motorcyclists, a full-scale club outing involving all the members of a given chapter or gang and devoted to maximum excess in all possible areas of activity.
| Hell’s Angels (1967) 40: The Oakland Hell’s Angels made a ‘run’ to Willits. | |
| Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1969) 171: A full-fledged Angels’ ‘run,’ the sort of outing on which the Angels did their thing, their whole freaking thing, en mangy raunchy, head-breaking, fire-pissing, rough-goddam-housing masse. | |
| Underground Dict. (1972). | |
| Florida Roadkill 95: A pack of sixty motorized scooters passed the window [...] ‘I think they’re on a run.’. |
3. in drug uses.
(a) (drugs) the immediate and intense feeling that follows the injection of heroin into a vein, or that follows the ingestion of any drug.
| Mr Blue 291: At the start of a cocaine run, nothing, not even religious ecstasy, will provide the same joy. |
(b) (drugs) an extended period of drug use.
| Drugs from A to Z (1970). | |
| et al. Angel Dust 190: When supplies were available, some of the freaks went on short ‘runs’ which lasted several days. | |
| Suicide Hill 21: ‘Ten K wouldn't have lasted you this long if you were on a coke run’. | |
| Adventures 213: Toward the end of my run, I'd copped coke from dealers in exchange for customized mix tapes. |
(c) the time (i.e. a number of years) during which a narcotics user maintains an addiction .
 | ‘The Problem of Heroin’ in Public Interest Fall 27: [N]othing is clearer than the fact that most young addicts enjoying their ‘run’ will not voluntarily choose a life without heroin in preference to a life with it. |
(d) (drugs) a search for drugs, often qualified by the drug’s name.
| Llama Parlour 90: He was in the middle of a cocaine run. | |
| Westsiders 118: I’m on a bud run. |
4. (US Und.) the walkway that runs the length of a line of cells.
| Prison Sl. 7: Run A row of prison cells in a cellhouse [...] A run can be the walking area in front of the cells or both the cells and the walking area. | |
| Mr Blue 51: The cells were left open while we ate; then we were locked up while trusties swept and mopped the run. |
5. see runaround n. (3)
SE in slang uses
In compounds
see separate entry.
see separate entry.
see separate entry.
see separate entry.
see separate entries.
see runaround n. (1)
In phrases
see under dry adj.1
to be dismissed from employment.
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Workingman’s Paradise 3: ‘You didn’t hear that my Tom got the run yesterday, did you?’ ‘Did he? What a pity! I’m very sorry,’ said Nellie. | |
| Eve. World (NY) 8 Sept. 2/6: The manager had to let some of the men go [...] and Hank got the run. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Dec. 22/4: Of course we was all searched, but they couldn’t find no trace, an’ the book-keeper got the run, as ’e was the larst one seen in the orfis. | |
| Rigby’s Romance (1921) Ch. xxx: 🌐 He had to resign, or git the run. | |
| Torchy 116: Suppose I gets the run next week, could I win another head office boy job by spielin’ off a mess of guff about a lot of dead ones? |
(US) to have at a disadvantage, to be in a position to laugh at.
| Dict. Americanisms 280: run. Joke; ridicule. ‘To get the run upon one,’ is to make a butt of him; turn him into ridicule. | |
| , | | Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. |
| , , | | Sl. Dict. |
| Sl. Dict. |
to provide satisfaction, to give someone their ‘money’s worth’, usu. fig.
| Sat. Rev. 4 479/1: That was only one of the well-understood outbreaks of ill manners and factiousness by which Irish members give their constituents ‘a run for their money’. | |
| Fun (London) XXXIII–IV 39: [He] only entered to give the Irish contingent a run for their money. | |
| Freethinker LXXXV 68: We are always being told about such organisations, yet never hear of any of them meeting the only people who can give them a run for their money. | |
| On the Wallaby Track 266: He only appears sulky and says he wishes they’d give him ‘a bit better moke, and he’d give ’em a run for their money, anyhow!’. | |
| ‘Their Lawful Occasions Pt II’ in Traffics and Discoveries 133: We’ll give the fishmonger a run for his money. Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe. | |
| ‘The Gangster’s Elegy’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 243: We’ve got a few good lads here an’ we’ll give ’em a run. | |
| Babbitt (1974) 38: He could have given any of these bloomin’ authors a whale of a run for their money! [Ibid.] 140: The Calroza Sisters [...] will give you a run for your gelt. | |
| (con. 1920s) Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 286: Studs looked like he might give him a run for his dough. | |
| Capricornia (1939) 519: Gunner give us a run for it. | |
| Foveaux 260: ‘We gave ’em a run for their money,’ the unrepentant Hutchison was heard to remark. | |
| Bound for Glory (1969) 408: If I wuz jus’ twenty-five years younger tonight, I’d give you gents a honest ta God run fer yer marbles. | |
| Poor Man’s Orange 94: The world had united against Dirty Dick, and Dirty Dick was going to give it a run for its money. | |
| Sat. Night and Sun. Morning 86: These two big swaddies might be after me, but if it comes to a fight I’ll give ’em a run for their money. | |
| Two Faces of January (1988) 226: If it came to a showdown, he’d give Rydal Keener a run for his money. | |
| Waiting for Sheila (1977) 109: I didn’t passionately disagree with any of it either, so I couldn’t give her a run for her money. | |
| Blow Your House Down 13: Give the poor little sod a run for his money. | |
| Guardian Sport 18 Sept. 16: It’ll give them wossnames, them Neville Brothers, a run for their bleedin’ money. | |
| Birthday 85: He looks as if there’s a bomb ticking inside him ready to explode, though I’d give him more than a run for his money if he made a move. | |
| More You Bet 8: To state that someone or something would giove someone or something else a ‘run for his (or its) money’ suggested that someone or something was competitive, that while not expected to finish in front [...] might be expected to ‘go close’. |
to get rid of.
| Truth (Sydney) 11 Mar. 1/8: [He] was thereupon promptly invested with the ancient order of the ‘sack’. He was engaged to be marreid to an attractive young lady, but she gave him the ‘run’ as well. | |
| Shorty McCabe 94: ‘Shall I give ’em the run?’ says I. | |
| Missing Link 🌐 Ch. xviii: Where’d my livin’ be? The Professor ud give me the run. |
to have some kind of return or satisfaction for one’s expenditure or exertions.
| [ | | Sporting Rev. 160: Both Acrobat and Rifleman won the Great Yorkshire Stakes in 1854–55 [...] and the remembrance will doubtless encourage owners to have a run for their money, just for the luck of the thing]. |
| Sl. Dict. 274: To have a run for one’s money is also to have a good determined struggle for anything. | |
| ‘’Arry on the Jubilee’ in Punch 25 June 305/1: No one, dear Charlie, can’t say / She [i.e. Queen Victoria] ain’t ’ad a fair run for ’er money. And now it’s ’er Juberlee Day. | |
| Checkers 53: I may have separated three or four guys from their stuff [...] but they always got a run for their money, and if they dropped it it wasn’t my fault. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Sept. 16/3: I got a summons for not having Tommy vaccinated. [...] Well, my wife was very anxious for me to come with her and pay the fine – whatever it was. But I was determined to stay behind, and have a run for my money. It was hardly likely that I was going to allow a parcel of wooden-headed J’s.P. fine me without a protest and a very strong expression of my opinion. | |
| Lonely Plough (1931) 190: He would have a good run for his money, wherever it ended. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Ulysses 155: That horse policeman the day Joe Chamberlain was given his degree in Trinity he got a run for his money. | |
| Railway Age CIV 577: Rather, he believes that this present ‘slouch of despond’ will not last forever and that the stockholders should have a ‘run for their money’. | |
| Aeroplane LXXV 198: There was certainly every reason for the charter companies to have a run for their money during the immediate post-war years. | |
| Mr. Hamish Gleave 152: If people wanted to play the spy, well and good, and they should have a run for their money. | |
| Firestarter 354: One way or another they would at least have a run for their money. | |
| You Call This Romance? 269: If she chose to be a model instead of a student of communications, Celine would have a run for her money. |
(Irish) to lose control.
| The Joy (2015) [ebook] One of the lads [...] has completely lost the run of himself. He’s throwing digs at the rate of two or three a second. |
1. to go out to buy a commodity, esp. drugs, but also groceries, liquor etc.
| From Here to Eternity (1998) 845: They had already made their bomb run on the whorehouses and dropped their load on Mrs Kipfer’s New Congress. | |
| Real Bohemia xvi: make the run to go to pick up liquor. | |
| ‘Shoe-shine on 63rd’ in Kochman Rappin’ and Stylin’ Out 212: I’m going to step now and make this little run. | |
| Property Of (1978) 102: McKay allowed the Sweet to make runs into the city and pick up envelopes [i.e. of heroin]. | |
| Royal Family 348: Gonna make a run. Gonna score a big rock of white girl. |
2. to attempt to seduce, to approach with amorous intentions.
| Semi-Tough 285: You can’t sleep because you’ve got to get drunk twice, eat three times, see a movie, and make a run at a stewardess. | |
| Strange Peaches 183: ‘I might of made a run at her, but her old man was hanging around for a while’. |
(US) to attempt to capture, assault or seduce someone.
| Ballygullion 168: ‘Out wi’ ye!’ an’ he takes a run-race at McAuley wi’ the lamp that sends him out av the hall-door. | |
| Final Days 388: It is essential that we show it is not safe for any country to take a run at us. | |
| Shooting Dr. Jack (2002) 71: Somebody thinking about taking a run at us. We piss offa somebody. |
(US) to leave.
| Philosophy of Johnny the Gent 21: ‘[A]ny time I’m over my nut I want to take it on the run. | |
| Sorrows of a Show Girl Ch. xv: I got every John in town so bunked that every time they see me coming they take it on the run for some place that I can’t get to ’em. | |
| ‘Circus Fists’ in Fight Stories Dec. 🌐 I seen Joe take it on the run, ducking out under the wall of the tent, and yelling, ‘Hey, Rube!’. |
In exclamations
a general expression of contempt or dismissal.
| ‘’Arry at the Sea-Side’ in Punch 10 Sept. 111/2: Take a run, Mister Mealymouthed Critic, go home and eat coke, poor old man. | |
| ‘The Broadcaster’ [music hall script] If you think you’ve been done, you can all take a run. |
(Aus.) a general excl. of dismissal or dislike, i.e. go to hell! (cf. take a running jump at yourself! under jump n.).
| Woman in the Dark (1990) 89: Fan said: ‘Go take a run at yourself’. | |
| Felony Tank (1962) 48: Billy and I been here over three weeks and all we’ve ever told any of them is go take a run at yourselves. |