run riot
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To act wildly or uncontrollably, causing chaos
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
hành động điên rồ hoặc mất kiểm soát, gây ra sự hỗn loạn
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: uncontrolled running
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Her imagination ran riot, peopling the place with great caliphs, beautiful ladies in gossamer veils and fierce soldiers to guard the purple - red ramparts.
He was running riot, switching off lights and knocking things over.
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 “run riot” mean?
To act wildly or uncontrollably, causing chaos Literally: uncontrolled running
Is “run riot” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.