TO OUT or OVER-RUN THE CONSTABLE, verbal phr. (common).—To live beyond one’s means and get into debt; also, in a figurative sense, to escape from a bad argument; ‘to change the subject’; to talk about what is not understood.

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  1663.  BUTLER, Hudibras, pt. I., canto iii., l. 1367.

          Quoth Hudibras, Friend Ralph, thou hast
OUT-RUN THE CONSTABLE at last:
For thou art fallen as a new
Dispute, as senseless as untrue,
But to the former opposite,
And contrary as black to white.

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  1748.  SMOLLETT, Roderick Random, ch. xxiii. He inquired, ‘how far have you OVERRUN THE CONSTABLE?’ I told him that the debt amounted to eleven pounds.

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  1766.  C. ANSTEY, The New Bath Guide, Letter vii.

        And some people think with such haste he began,
That soon he THE CONSTABLE greatly OUTRAN.

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  1782.  WOLCOT (‘Peter Pindar’), The Rights of Kings, ode xi. Got deep in debt, THE CONSTABLE OUT-RAN.

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  1836.  DICKENS, Pickwick Papers, ch. xii., p. 357. ‘He run a match agin THE CONSTABLE, and vun it.’ ‘In other words, I suppose.’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘he got into debt.’ ‘Just that, sir,’ replied Sam.

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