English

Alternative forms

• run circles round

Verb

run circles around

1. To outperform by a great margin.

   You may think you're a fast typist, but he'll run circles around you any day!

Usage notes

• This phrase is the prototype for many variants using verbs other than "run". In some cases the resulting expressions seem strained because the literal sense of "circles" clashes with the nature of the verb. See Citations:run circles around#Variants.