Runner

How to spell runner

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce runner

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does runner mean?

1. nounA person or animal that runs, especially as a sport or for exercise.
2. nounA long narrow strip of carpet or fabric laid along a hallway, staircase, or table.
3. nounA trailing stem that a plant sends out along the ground to form new roots.
4. nounOne of the long strips on which a sledge or skate slides.

Runner in a sentence

• The marathon runner trained for months before the race.

• They laid a striped runner down the length of the hallway.

• The strawberry plant put out a long runner that took root nearby.

• He polished each metal runner so the sledge would glide faster.

• Every runner collected a numbered bib at the registration desk.

• A linen runner ran down the centre of the dining table.

Where does runner come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built on the native English verb 'run', which traces back to Old English 'rinnan' and 'iernan', meaning 'to move swiftly on foot' or 'to flow'; these in turn descend from a Germanic root shared with Dutch 'rennen' and German 'rennen'. The agent suffix '-er', also of Germanic origin, simply marks the one who performs the action, so a 'runner' is literally 'one who runs'. The form has existed in English since the medieval period and steadily picked up extra meanings as the centuries passed. By natural extension it came to describe things that 'run' in a looser sense: a long strip of carpet that runs down a hallway, the smooth strips on which a sledge slides, and the trailing stem a strawberry plant sends out across the soil. The spelling trap is purely the doubled 'n', which appears because a short stressed vowel before the suffix forces the consonant to double, just as in 'beginner' and 'planner'.

How the word is built

• run (to move quickly on foot)
• -er (agent/noun suffix denoting one that does the action)