- a person who runs, esp an athlete
- a messenger for a bank or brokerage firm
- a person engaged in the solicitation of business
- a person on the run; fugitive
- a person or vessel engaged in smuggling; smuggler
- (in combination): a rum-runner
- a person who operates, manages, or controls something
- either of the strips of metal or wood on which a sledge runs
- the blade of an ice skate
- a roller or guide for a sliding component
- a slender stem with very long internodes, as of the strawberry, that arches down to the ground and propagates by producing roots and shoots at the nodes or tip
- a plant that propagates in this way
- a strip of lace, linen, etc, placed across a table, dressing table, etc, for protection and decoration
another word for rocker - do a runner ⇒ slang to run away in order to escape trouble or to avoid paying for something
WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2026
run•ner /ˈrʌnɚ/USA pronunciation
n. [countable]
WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2026- a person, animal, or thing that runs, esp. as a racer.
- a messenger, esp. of a bank or brokerage house.
- Sport[Baseball.]a player on base or trying to reach a base.
- Sport[Football.]the ball-carrier.
- a smuggler.
- Transporteither of the long, bladelike strips of metal or wood on which a sled or sleigh slides.
- the blade of an ice skate.
- Textilesa long, narrow rug.
run•ner
(run′ər),USA pronunciation n.
- a person, animal, or thing that runs, esp. as a racer.
- a messenger.
- a messenger of a bank or brokerage house.
- Sport[Baseball.]See base runner.
- Sport[Football.]the ball-carrier.
- a person whose business it is to solicit patronage or trade.
- a person acting as collector, agent, or the like, for a bank, broker, etc.
- something in or on which something else runs or moves.
- Transporteither of the long, bladelike strips of metal or wood on which a sled or sleigh slides.
- the blade of an ice skate.
- Hydraulicsthe rotating system of blades driven by the fluid passing through a reaction turbine.
- the rotating member of a pair of millstones. Cf. bed stone.
- a roller on which something moves along.
- Furniture
- a sliding piece, as a loper.
- rocker (def. 1).
- an operator or manager, as of a machine.
- a long, narrow rug, suitable for a hall or passageway.
- a long, narrow strip of line, embroidery, lace, or the like, placed across a table.
- [Bot.]
- Botanya slender stolon that runs along the surface of the ground and sends out roots and leaves at the nodes, as in the strawberry.
- Botanya plant that spreads by such stems.
- Metallurgyany of the channels through which molten metal flows.
- a smuggler.
- a vessel engaged in smuggling.
- Gamesa person who takes, transmits, and often pays off bets for a bookmaker or a numbers pool.
- Fish[Ichthyol.]a jurel, Caranx crysos, inhabiting waters from Cape Cod to Brazil.
- Buildinga horizontal longitudinal timber resting upon the uprights of a staging and supporting the footing pieces.
- Show Business[Theat.]a piece of carpet or matting placed in the wings for deadening offstage sounds.
- Mechanical Engineeringa tackle or part of a tackle consisting of a line rove through a single block and fixed at one end. See diag. under tackle.
- 1250–1300; Middle English; see run, -er1
Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::
runner /ˈrʌnə/ n
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'runner' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):
Aouita
- baton
- bean
- Bikila
- blade
- Coe
- coureur de bois
- Cram
- evens
- every one
- fancied
- flagellum
- grand slam
- gun
- harrier
- Higgins
- hound
- Juantorena
- kidney bean
- Kristiansen
- lead
- Le Pen
- majority
- Nurmi
- offset
- Ovett
- paper chase
- plurality
- Radcliffe
- Redgrave
- relative majority
- runner bean
- runner-up
- scarlet runner
- shoe
- Sillitoe
- skate
- tailskid
- throw out
- ultra-distance
- Viren
- Waitz
- Walker
- Zátopek
- allograph
- appeal play
- assist
- balk
- bar foot
- baseball
