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2295 entries found
runaway (n.)
1540s, "one who flees," from verbal phrase, from run (v.) + away (adv.). Meaning "an act of running away" is from 1724.
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runcible 
1871, a nonsense word coined by Edward Lear; used especially in runcible spoon "spoon with three short tines like a fork," which first took the name 1926.
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runcinate (adj.)
1776, "saw-toothed," from Modern Latin runcinatus, from Latin runcina "a (carpenter's) plane."
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rundown (n.)
in baseball, 1908, from verbal phrase, from run (v.) + down (adv.). Meaning "list of entries in a horse race and the odds" is from 1935; slang generalized sense of "summary, account, list of information or facts" is from 1945.
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rune (n.)
Old English run, rune "secret, mystery, dark mysterious statement, (secret) council," also "a runic letter" (runstæf), from Proto-Germanic *runo (source also of Old Norse run "a secret, magic sign, runic character," Old High German runa "a secret conversation, whisper," Gothic runa), from PIE *ru-no-, source of technical terms of magic in Germanic and Celtic (source also of Gaelic run "a secret, mystery, craft, deceit, purpose, intention, desire," Welsh rhin "a secret, charm, virtue"). Also see Runnymede.

The presumption often is that the magical sense was the original one of the word, and the use of runes as letters was secondary. However, this derivation is questioned by some linguists: "[T]he obsession with magic of many runologists can be explained more from the psychology of the scholars than from the intrinsic contents of the inscriptions. ... [F]or almost all [of these scholars] the aura of mystery which they ascribe to the fuþark was a supplementary attraction in an otherwise austere field of labor" [French scholar Lucien Musset, quoted in Elmer H. Antonsen, "The Runes: The Earliest Germanic Writing System," in "The Origins of Writing,"University ogf Nebraska, 1989] .

The word entered Middle English as roun and by normal evolution would have become Modern English *rown, but it died out mid-15c. when the use of runes did. The modern usage is from late 17c., from German philologists who had reintroduced the word in their writings from a Scandinavian source (such as Danish rune, from Old Norse run). The runic alphabet is believed to have developed by 2c. C.E. from contact with Greek writing, with the letters modified to be more easily cut into wood or stone.
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rung (n.)

Old English hrung "rod, bar," from Proto-Germanic *khrungo (source also of Middle Low German runge, Old High German runga "stake, stud, stave," German Runge "stake, stud, stave," Middle Dutch ronghe, Dutch rong "rung," Gothic hrugga "staff"), of unknown origin with no connections outside Germanic. Sense in English narrowed to "round or stave of a ladder" (first attested late 13c.), but usage of cognate words remains more general in other Germanic languages.

This [rungs] has generally been considered as a mere corruption of rounds; and people of education use only this latter word. [John Pickering, "A Vocabulary or Collection of Words and Phrases which have been Supposed to be Peculiar to the United States of America," Boston, 1816]
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runic (adj.)
1660s, from Modern Latin runicus, from Old Norse run (see rune).
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runnel (n.)
"rivulet," 1570s, in Hakluyt, alteration of Middle English ryneil, from Old English rinelle, rynel, a diminutive of ryne "a stream" (from PIE root *rei- "to run, flow") with -el (2).
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runner (n.)
c. 1300, "messenger on foot," agent noun from run (v.). Meaning "one who runs" is early 14c. Meaning "smuggler" first recorded 1721; sense of "police officer" is from 1771. Meaning "rooting stem of a plant" is from 1660s; that of "embroidered cloth for a table" is from 1888.
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runner-up (n.)
1842, originally in dog racing, "dog that loses only the final race;" see runner + up. General sense is from 1885.
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