give someone the runaround
"give-someone-the-runaround" is a 23-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“give someone the runaround” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 26
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To delay, dodge, or frustrate (someone), especially by providing useless information or directions.
Corpus desk
Index EN-give-someone-the-runarou · give someone the runaround · English
give someone the runaround · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 26 letters
- VOW-11 11 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "G" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | give someone the runaround |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 26 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “give someone the runaround” in English
Rare enough to double-check
give someone the runaround is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To delay, dodge, or frustrate (someone), especially by providing useless information or directions.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for give someone the runaround, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is give someone the runaround, spelled G-I-V-E- -S-O-M-E-O-N-E- -T-H-E- -R-U-N-A-R-O-U-N-D.
Definition
- 1To delay, dodge, or frustrate (someone), especially by providing useless information or directions.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how give someone the runaround appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Deitch decided seven years ago that she wanted to film a lesbian love story. When major producers gave her the run-around, she formed her own production company, hustled for backers and gathered the right crew of technicians and actors to make it happen.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.