To meet someone by chance, to collide with something, or to encounter a problem
To accidentally meet someone you know, crash into something, or find a problem
4 meanings, ordered from most common to least. Color-coded by CEFR level.
To meet someone unexpectedly without planning to
"I ran into my old school teacher at the supermarket yesterday."
"I ran into Bob Dylan at a party in the early seventies."
— Bruce Springsteen, widely reported in interviews
To collide with a person, vehicle, or object
"He lost control of the car and ran into a tree."
To encounter problems, difficulties, or obstacles
"The construction project ran into serious funding problems last year."
"We ran into a lot of resistance when we tried to pass the bill."
— General political discourse; widely used phrasing in US Congressional reporting
To reach a large amount or number (of money, words, pages, etc.)
"The legal costs ran into hundreds of thousands of dollars."
To run and collide with something — this is the physical sense, from which other meanings extend
To accidentally meet someone you know, crash into something, or find a problem
The 'meet by chance' sense is very frequent in everyday speech. The 'encounter a problem' sense is common in formal and business contexts ('run into difficulties').
Natural word combinations native speakers use most often.
The five tense forms you'll use most often.
Listen to native speakers using "run into" in real YouTube videos — click a clip to watch it on Looplines.
Jump to every phrasal verb built on the same verb, particle, or level.