outrun

[ out-ruhn ]

verb (used with object)

, out·ran [out-, ran], out·run, out·run·ning.

1. to run faster or farther than.
2. to escape by or as if by running:

   They managed to outrun the police.

3. to exceed; excel; surpass.

outrun

/ ˌaʊtˈrʌn /

verb

1. to run faster, farther, or better than
2. to escape from by or as if by running
3. to go beyond; exceed

Word History and Origins

Origin of outrun¹

First recorded in 1520–30; out + run

Example Sentences

When Murray faces the blitz, he can juke or outrun a pass rusher.

From Washington Post

I have mostly spent quarantine doing things, taking on new creative projects and challenges, because on some level, I’m trying to outrun my own sense of the world having frozen in place.

From Vox

Look beneath the surface and you’d see him sweating and paddling to outrun tax bills and bankruptcies and vast foreign debt.

From Fortune

Doing it all, in Abovitz’s eyes, was the only way to outrun the corporate giants who also wanted to own the future.

From Fortune

You don’t have to—just outrun the slower person also fleeing the bear.

From Popular-Science

The subplot is always whether The Company will outrun her latest mood swing, which also turns out to be somehow brilliant.

From The Daily Beast

The Bonnie and Clyde couple must rob a virtual bank, threaten virtual civilians, and then outrun the virtual police!

From The Daily Beast

But their attempts to outrun his Secret Service detail end in disaster when Finn hits a woman and flees the scene.

From The Daily Beast

Conor is by all accounts a caring and sophisticated soul, but no man can completely outrun his DNA.

From The Daily Beast

Those who carry out this pillage probably believe they can outrun their own destructiveness.

From The Daily Beast

Here the “c” is hard and represents 7, and as the steamboat could easily outrun the “scow,” the phrase is easily remembered.

From Project Gutenberg

Bill Barry's statement that the cru-colored bovine was "lively" and could outrun his sorrel mare was, at least founded upon fact.

From Project Gutenberg

For a time it was easy to outrun the wolves and panthers, but at last they began to press hard upon him.

From Project Gutenberg

He answers by showing how easily ships, without putting themselves out of breath, will outrun soldiers marching along the coast.

From Project Gutenberg

We may outrun / By violent swiftness that which we run at, / And lose by overrunning.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• elude
• surpass