run someone ragged

present singular third person runs someone ragged · participle present running someone ragged · past ran someone ragged

1. idiomaticTo exhaust; to demand excessive effort or work from somebody.

   They’ve been running him ragged trying to keep up with the demand for new features.

   5 more examples

   A little man by modern-day goon-basketball standards, the five-foot ten-inch speedster [Ralph Beard] handles bigger opponents by running them ragged.

   1950 January, Stanley Pashko, “Scanning the Sports Scene”, in Irving Crump, editor, Boys’ Life: The Magazine for All Boys, volume XL, number 1, New York, N.Y.: Boy Scouts of America, →OCLC, page 16, column 1

   Rebeca is busy with the children, who are busy getting into mischief. The baby runs her ragged.

   1992, Teresa Kao, “Nikki”, in The Quality of the Light, West Linn, Or.: Gangor Press, →ISBN, page 166

   The choice of priorities he had chosen gave him the right to demand acceptance of his ways and ignore the needs of others. It gave him the power to insist on servitude and, without thought, dismiss Arnam's pride. It gave him the right to torment, the right to run him ragged when he chose, [...]

   2010, Kaiser Jamal, chapter 1, in A Haunting of Shadows, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 24

   He's letting me hire four new rangers. Isn't that great? The increase in tourists are running us ragged.

   2012, Kathryn Meyer Griffith, chapter 17, in Dinosaur Lake, [Scotts Valley, Calif.]: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, →ISBN; republished [Los Gatos, Calif.]: Smashwords Edition, 2014, →ISBN, page 346

   England ran Tunisia ragged in that spell but were punished for missing a host of chances when Ferjani Sassi equalised from the penalty spot against the run of play after Kyle Walker was penalised for an elbow on Fakhreddine Ben Youssef.

   2018 June 18, Phil McNulty, “Tunisia 1 – 2 England”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 21 Apr 2019

   Synonyms: beleaguer, exhaust, fatigue, fordo, do for, gas out, get down, jade