run amok

Idioms and Phrases

Also, run riot or wild . Behave in a frenzied, out-of-control, or unrestrained manner. For example, I was afraid that if I left the toddler alone she would run amok and have a hard time calming down , or The weeds are running riot in the lawn , or The children were running wild in the playground. Amok comes from a Malay word for “frenzied” and was adopted into English, and at first spelled amuck , in the second half of the 1600s. Run riot dates from the early 1500s and derives from an earlier sense, that is, a hound's following an animal scent. Run wild alludes to an animal reverting to its natural, uncultivated state; its figurative use dates from the late 1700s.

Example Sentences

But conservatives, in reaction, spent so much of the 1990s and early 2000s dining out on their exposes of liberal hypocrisies and political correctness run amok that they forgot how to cook anything better for themselves or the rest of us.

From Salon

Trump has also fantasized about his own version of “the Purge” where his police and other right-wing street thugs can run amok, killing and brutalizing “the enemy” at will.

From Salon

Was the decision to block an affordable housing project NIMBYism run amok in swanky Beverly Hills or the reasonable decision of city officials acting in good faith?

From Los Angeles Times

Was the decision to block an affordable housing project NIMBYism run amok in swanky Beverly Hills or the reasonable decision of city officials acting in good faith?

From Los Angeles Times

Gascón’s data-driven pushbacks have done little to chip at public perceptions of crime run amok.

From Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• defy
• overthrow
• renounce
• resist
• revolt
• secede
• take up arms