run-on sentence

noun

: a sentence containing two or more clauses not connected by the correct conjunction or punctuation

Examples of run-on sentence in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Apparently my run-on sentence post last week appeared even more ranty than usual. — Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 18 June 2020

The narrator lives in a country whose mythic propositions hang in the same limbo as her run-on sentence. — Katy Waldman, The New Yorker, 6 Sep. 2019

Lucy Ellmann’s eighth novel — 1,000 pages long and primarily composed of run-on sentences — is an experimental narrative that probes the anxieties of life in contemporary America. — Annabel Gutterman, Time, 30 Aug. 2019

Great thickets of verbiage tumble forth as Virgil Abloh thinks out loud in long, run-on sentences—often doubling back to critique himself or to add further thoughts or rephrase. — Jonathan Van Meter, Vogue, 14 May 2019

For those of us who make a habit of investing our allegiance in underdogs, then, the World Cup often reads like an interminable, run-on sentence of tragedy, loosely punctuated with eruptions of joy. — Kanishk Tharoor, The Atlantic, 14 July 2018

Each room has its own character, so the house isn't one continuous run-on sentence. — Lisa Cregan, House Beautiful, 30 Mar. 2015

Word History

First Known Use

1914, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for run-on sentence

• presentence
• repentance

Kids Definition

run-on sentence

noun

: a sentence formed from two or more sentences improperly joined (as "I didn't see the red light, officer, I was looking the other way")