Ran
//ɹæn// name, noun, verb, slang
name, noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Yarns coiled on a spun-yarn winch. uncountable
- 2 Initialism of radio access network (“the underlying physical connection method for a radio based communication network”). abbreviation, alt-of, initialism, uncountable
Verb
- 1 simple past of run form-of, past
- 2 simple past of rin form-of, past
- 3 past participle of run colloquial, form-of, nonstandard, participle, past
"[…]rather to convince the Underſtanding, than to be eaſily capable of being anſwered ; excuſing your ſelf that you have ran into an Error, ſo foreign as you have declared from your Intention,[…]"
Proper Noun
- 1 Initialism of Royal Australian Navy Australia, abbreviation, alt-of, initialism
- 2 A male given name from Hebrew.
- 3 A female given name from Japanese.
- 4 A surname.
Example
More examples"The police are really good at understanding "Someone stole my credit card and ran up a lot of charges." It's a lot harder to get them to buy into "Someone stole my magic sword.""
Etymology
Etymology 1
From Hebrew רָן (ran).
Etymology 2
Borrowed from Japanese らん/蘭.
More for "ran"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.