run amok

1. Also,. Behave in a frenzied, out-of-control, or unrestrained manner. For example, I was afraid that if I left the toddler alone she would run amok and have a hard time calming down, or The weeds are running riot in the lawn, or The children were running wild in the playground. Amok comes from a Malay word for “frenzied” and was adopted into English, and at first spelled amuck, in the second half of the 1600s. Run riot dates from the early 1500s and derives from an earlier sense, that is, a hound's following an animal scent. Run wild alludes to an animal reverting to its natural, uncultivated state; its figurative use dates from the late 1700s.

Example Sentences

Friedman is seeking to push them out of the case, alleging the firm had “run amok” and “dangled the prospect of lottery sized payouts” in front of clients without vetting them.

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The poster child for vendor financing run amok was Lucent Technologies.

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Born Ella Yelich-O’Connor, Lorde broke out at age 16 with “Royals,” her stark and whispery debut single — “a speech barely scaffolded with melody,” she calls it now — about the illusory satisfactions of a consumer culture run amok.

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Their defending has been such an abomination that Celtic, with no dependable striker but with a point to prove, could potentially run amok.

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This, I realized while standing there, was public policy in action, MAGA’s culture of cruelty and gangster capitalism run amok on the street level.

Read more on Salon

Related Words

• defy 
• overthrow 
• renounce 
• resist 
• revolt 
• secede 
• take up arms