Idiom
run someone ragged
Meaning
To exhaust; to demand excessive effort or work from somebody.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“The busy restaurant shift really ran me ragged today.”
“My toddler has so much energy that he runs me ragged by the end of every afternoon.”
“The demanding project manager ran his entire team ragged, insisting on constant revisions until they were all completely exhausted.”
Examples
simple
“The busy restaurant shift really ran me ragged today.”
contextual
“My toddler has so much energy that he runs me ragged by the end of every afternoon.”
complex
“The demanding project manager ran his entire team ragged, insisting on constant revisions until they were all completely exhausted.”
Origin
From run and ragged, in the sense of being exhausted or run down.
Key words
Related idioms
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