run with

present singular third person runs with · participle present running with · past ran with

1. literallyTo be streaming with a fluid.

   The streets were running with rain water.

   1 more example

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

2. idiomaticinformalTo follow something through to completion or realization.

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

   2006, David I. Cleland, Lewis R. Ireland, Project management: strategic design and implementation, page 83

3. idiomaticinformalTo 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.

4. USidiomaticinformalTo be a member of (a gang, hooligan firm, etc.); to associate with a, typically disreputable, individual or group.

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

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

   2 more examples

   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.

   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

   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.

   2012, John O'Kane, Celtic Soccer Crew

   Synonyms: consort, keep company

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

   The thief was running with the purse in his hands.