Your English: Collocations: run

With the meaning of ‘control’, ‘organise’ or ‘manage’, you can run a business, run a competition, run a rail or bus service or run a training course.

In the world of politics, you can run a campaign, as in ‘He’s the man who ran the president's election campaign’. In the sense of ‘examine’, medical or technical staff can run tests on someone or something, while security staff might find it necessary to run checks on someone. In the field of publishing, a newspaper can run an article on a particular topic (print it) or run an advertisement for some product or other.

After a hard day’s work, the first thing some people like to do when they get home is run a bath (fill the bath with hot water) while others like to run their eyes over the newspaper (read it very quickly). If you are feeling ill, you might be running a temperature or running a fever, and if you ignore the symptoms you could run the risk of making it worse.

You can also run a computer program (start it or use it), as in ‘Try running the program again and see if it works', and to connect your computer to the electricity supply you will probably have to run a cable from your desk to the socket.

People who drive will know that it costs more and more to run a car these days (to use and maintain it) and they will also know that if they run a red light (continue driving even though the light is red), they run the risk of being fined.