/run"euhr/ , n.
1. a person, animal, or thing that runs, esp. as a racer.
2. a messenger.
3. a messenger of a bank or brokerage house.
4. Baseball. See base runner .
5. Football. the ball-carrier.
6. a person whose business it is to solicit patronage or trade.
7. a person acting as collector, agent, or the like, for a bank, broker, etc.
8. something in or on which something else runs or moves.
9. either of the long, bladelike strips of metal or wood on which a sled or sleigh slides.
10. the blade of an ice skate.
11. the rotating system of blades driven by the fluid passing through a reaction turbine.
12. the rotating member of a pair of millstones. Cf. bed stone .
13. a roller on which something moves along.
14. Furniture.
a. a sliding piece, as a loper.
b. rocker (def. 1).
15. an operator or manager, as of a machine.
16. a long, narrow rug, suitable for a hall or passageway.
17. a long, narrow strip of line, embroidery, lace, or the like, placed across a table.
18. Bot.
a. a slender stolon that runs along the surface of the ground and sends out roots and leaves at the nodes, as in the strawberry.
b. a plant that spreads by such stems.
19. Metall. any of the channels through which molten metal flows.
20. a smuggler.
21. a vessel engaged in smuggling.
22. a person who takes, transmits, and often pays off bets for a bookmaker or a numbers pool.
23. Ichthyol. a jurel, Caranx crysos, inhabiting waters from Cape Cod to Brazil.
24. Building Trades. a horizontal longitudinal timber resting upon the uprights of a staging and supporting the footing pieces.
25. Theat. a piece of carpet or matting placed in the wings for deadening offstage sounds.
26. a tackle or part of a tackle consisting of a line rove through a single block and fixed at one end. See diag. under tackle .
[ 1250-1300; ME; see RUN, -ER 1 ]