Etimology
From Middle English reule, rewle, rule, borrowed from Old French riule, reule, from Latin regula (“straight stick, bar, ruler, pattern”), from regō (“to keep straight, direct, govern, rule”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃réǵeti (“to straighten; right”), from the root *h₃reǵ-; see regent. Doublet of rail.
noun
rule (countable and uncountable, plural rules)
A regulation, law, guideline.
A regulating principle.
The act of ruling; administration of law; government; empire; authority; control.
A normal condition or state of affairs.
(obsolete) Conduct; behaviour.
(law) An order regulating the practice of the courts, or an order made between parties to an action or a suit.
(mathematics) A determinate method prescribed for performing any operation and producing a certain result.
A ruler; device for measuring, a straightedge, a measure.
A straight line (continuous mark, as made by a pen or the like), especially one lying across a paper as a guide for writing.
(printing, dated) A thin plate of brass or other metal, of the same height as the type, and used for printing lines, as between columns on the same page, or in tabular work.
Examples
Synonyms: see Thesaurus:rule
All participants must adhere to the rules.
We profess to have embraced a religion which contains the most exact rules for the government of our lives.
The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them […] is often assumed to be the preserve of high-tech companies. […] current tax rules make it easy for all sorts of firms to generate […] “stateless income”: profit subject to tax in a jurisdiction that is neither the location of the factors of production that generate the income nor where the parent firm is domiciled.
There's little can be said in 't; 'Tis against the rule of nature.
Obey them that have the rule over you.
His stern rule the groaning land obeyed.
My rule is to rise at six o'clock.
As a rule, our senior editors are serious-minded.
This uncivil rule; she shall know of it.
a rule for extracting the cube root
As we may observe in the Works of Art, a Judicious Artist will indeed use his Eye, but he will trust only to his Rule.
It is not right to pervert the judge by moving him to anger or envy or pity—one might as well warp a carpenter's rule before using it.
Related words
related terms
regulate
regent
regular
Etimology
From Middle English reulen, rulen, borrowed from Old French riuler, from Latin regulāre (“to regulate, rule”), from regula (“a rule”); see regular and regulate.
verb
rule (third-person singular simple present rules, present participle ruling, simple past and past participle ruled)
(transitive, stative) To regulate, be in charge of, make decisions for, reign over.
(slang, intransitive, stative) To excel.
(intransitive) To decide judicially.
(transitive) To establish or settle by, or as by, a rule; to fix by universal or general consent, or by common practice.
(transitive) To mark (paper or the like) with rules (lines).
Examples
And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes. He said that if you wanted to do anything for them, you must rule them, not pamper them. Soft heartedness caused more harm than good.
This game rules!
The US supreme court has ruled unanimously that natural human genes cannot be patented, a decision that scientists and civil rights campaigners said removed a major barrier to patient care and medical innovation.
That's a ruled case with the school-men.
Related words
synonyms
(to excel): rock (also slang)
antonyms
(antonym(s) of "to excel"): suck (vulgar slang)
Etimology
Related to revel.
noun
rule
(obsolete) Revelry.
verb
rule (third-person singular simple present rules, present participle ruling, simple past and past participle ruled)
(obsolete, intransitive) To revel.