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speedrun

American  
[speed-ruhn] / ˈspidˌrʌn /

noun

  1. (in a video game) a session or instance of play in which the goal is to finish the game or level, or meet another game-play objective, as quickly as possible.

    Can you beat a 45-minute speedrun of Super Mario?


verb (used with object)

  1. to play (a video game) with such a goal.

    She tried to speedrun the dungeon without fighting any ghouls.

Etymology

Origin of speedrun

First recorded in 2000–05; speed ( def. ) + run ( def. )

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

“We’re basically trying to speedrun 20 years of scientific progress in two years,” said Batson, a research scientist at Anthropic.

From The Wall Street Journal Oct. 23, 2025

JH says the speedrun community was "gutted" when they learned Mario and Sonic wouldn't be heading for Paris.

From BBC Aug. 6, 2024

Flame Fatales 2022 If Pokémon isn’t your thing, there’s also Flame Fatales, an all-women Games Done Quick charity speedrun event.

From The Verge Aug. 19, 2022

On Monday, a jaw-dropping Halo Infinite video kept showing up on my Twitter feed that looked like something out of a Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild speedrun.

From The Verge Dec. 11, 2021

I knew he’d probably gone to Gygax, or somewhere equally awesome, to speedrun through a few quests and rack up some XPs.

From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline

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