on the run
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
trying to escape or hide from someone
Literally: running
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
NHS dentists already earn on average £10,000 a year less than doctors and they're not willing to take a £6,000 pay cut.
When he had not returned by lam, it was assumed that he was the wanted man.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “on the run” mean?
trying to escape or hide from someone Literally: running
Is “on the run” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.