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Glite Dictionary
⛽ To use as fuel 🗣️ To talk too much ⏳ To continue longer
to run on

to run on

142 3.7
To use a particular fuel or source for power
  • phrasal verb
  • /rʌn ɑn/
translation icon : funcionar con
  • That's right, because your car runs on oil and on nothing else.
  • run on fossil fuels
  • run on diesel
  • engines run on diesel

We have an entire system that is run on code.

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Examples

  • Your brain runs on glucose!

    The Fall Guy (2024)

  • Our government, so simply, is run on the basis of money, and how, and who issues and controls it is as much a founding building block as the First and Fourth Amendments.

    4 Presidents (2020)

  • Well, she runs on the fuel of your fear.

    Smurfs (2025)

  • Well, the fuel that friendship runs on is trust.

    Mat Boggs

  • And as you know or may have heard, an army runs on its stomach.

    Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)

  • This whole planet runs on greed.

    Violent Night (2022)

  • She runs on electricity like the rest of us.

    Nuclear Hurricane (2007)

  • Some 73 percent of the generating capacity will run on fossil fuels in 2005.

    Academic text (2001)

  • No matter how little sleep she ran on or what horrors unfolded, she looked glamorous and serene.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • Your car runs on gasoline, which is essential for its engine to function.

Synonyms

to feed off
vsto run on
34 3.7

To take energy from something, like food or attention

is about depending on a source to provide power or motivation

Antonyms

to turn off
631 1.3

To stop a machine or device from working with a switch

How Dependent

to depend on
309 1.0
to run on
142 3.7
to rely on
602 1.0

Surface Forms

run on infinitive
ran on past
ran on past participle
running on present participle
runs on third person singular

Morphology

run + on

The meaning 'to be powered by' is directly derivable from combining 'run' in the sense of 'operate' with the preposition 'on' indicating the source or means (e.g., runs on gasoline = operates using gasoline). This verb + preposition composition is common in English and in many other languages, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would very likely infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Run on comes from the literal idea of a machine or person 'running' while using something 'on' as fuel, for example a car that runs on petrol. So, when we say something runs on a fuel or idea, we mean it 'is powered by' that thing.