run-on sentence

American  

noun

run-on sentences plural

1. a written sequence of two or more main clauses that are not separated by a period or semicolon or joined by a conjunction.

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run-on sentence Cultural  

1. A grammatically faulty sentence in which two or more main or independent clauses are joined without a word to connect them or a punctuation mark to separate them: “The fog was thick he could not find his way home.” The error can be corrected by adding a conjunction with a comma (“The fog was thick, and he could not find his way home”) or by separating the two clauses with a semicolon (“The fog was thick; he could not find his way home”).

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• run-on sentences
  plural

Etymology

Origin of run-on sentence

First recorded in 1910–15

Example Sentences

What followed instead was an hour of presidential stream of consciousness as Mr. Trump drifted seemingly at random from one topic to another, often in the same run-on sentence.

From New York Times • Jul. 14, 2020

And yes, it’s usually said in a run-on sentence.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 14, 2019

The narrator lives in a country whose mythic propositions hang in the same limbo as her run-on sentence.

From The New Yorker • Sep. 6, 2019

When they say you have to fit your story into a single sentence, that doesn’t mean it can be a run-on sentence with clauses and nested lists and dormer windows and a carport and all.

From Slate • May 25, 2016

She talked like a run-on sentence, no pauses or periods.

From "Far from the Tree" by Robin Benway