run out

verb

ran out; run out; running out; runs out

intransitive verb

1

a

: to come to an end : expire

time ran out

b

: to become exhausted or used up

the gasoline ran out

2

: to jut out

transitive verb

1

a

: to finish out (a course, a series, a contest, etc.) : complete

b

of a baseball batter : to run hard to first base after hitting (a batted ball)

ran out the grounder

2

a

: to fill out (a typeset line) with quads, leaders, or ornaments

b

: to set (a line of text, such as the first line of a paragraph) with a hanging indention

3

: to exhaust (oneself) in running

4

: to cause to leave by force or coercion : expel

Phrases

run out of

: to use up the available supply of

ran out of time

run out on

: desert

Examples of run out in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Observations of disks over the last two decades have revealed that most of these run out of gas inside the first 10 million years, leaving behind chunks of rock and ice to finish building up worlds. —Nola Taylor Tillman, Space.com, 17 Feb. 2025

Government funding runs out in less than a month now. —ABC News, 16 Feb. 2025

As widely expected, the White House has run out of patience for Europe's reliance on Washington to carry the bulk of the burden with defense spending. —Josh Hammer, Newsweek, 16 Feb. 2025

But a truly effective Iron Dome system is hard to imagine without a laser component, given the high-speed nature and possibilities of being overwhelmed and running out of conventional air defense missiles. —James Stavridis, The Mercury News, 15 Feb. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at intransitive sense 1a

Kids Definition

run out

verb

1

: to come to an end : expire

time ran out before we could tie the game

2

: to become exhausted or used up

our supplies were running out