run afoul of

English

Pronunciation

  • Audio (General Australian):(file)

Verb

run afoul of (third-person singular simple present runs afoul of, present participle running afoul of, simple past ran afoul of, past participle run afoul of)

  1. (nautical) To become entangled in; to run aground on.
  2. (idiomatic) To contravene.
    When quoting others, take care not to run afoul of copyright rules.
    • 2019 January 31, Ian Bogost, “Apple’s Empty Grandstanding About Privacy”, in The Atlantic[1], archived from the original on 2 February 2019:
      Facebook ran afoul of Apple because it used this system to distribute its data-collection app to consumers outside the company, which isn’t allowed.
    • 2023 May 27, Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert, “Elon Musk pulled Twitter from the EU's anti-disinformation agreement and continues to troll with alt-right memes and dogwhistles. It could be a sign he'll close the site to Europe completely”, in Business Insider[2]:
      Such posts, and more extreme examples of hate speech that spiked on the platform since his takeover, could run afoul of the EU's framework for combating racism and xenophobia, landing Twitter — and Musk himself — in hot water with the European Commission.

Translations