Word.ws English Dictionary

bent the rules

bent the rules is the simple past and past participle of bend the rules.

Meaning of bend the rules

Verb

bend the rules (third-person singular simple present bends the rules, present participle bending the rules, simple past and past participle bent the rules)

  1. To do something that is not normally allowed but is also not explicitly prohibited.
    • Such a mechanism could preserve individuals with mainly prosocial inclinations by enabling them to bend the rules in minor ways without suffering from guilt and without losing out in competition with free-riders.2008, Robert A. Hinde, Bending the Rules: The Flexibility of Absolutes in Modern Life, →ISBN

Questions about bent the rules

What is bent the rules the simple past and past participle of?
Bent the rules is the simple past and past participle of bend the rules.

Words near bent the rules in the dictionary

  1. bent someone's will
  2. Bent Spear
  3. Bent Spears
  4. bent the brain
  5. bent the knee
  6. bent the rules
  7. bent the truth
  8. bent to one's will
  9. bent to someone's will
  10. bent-grass
  11. bent-side

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bent the rules (page history and authors); bend the rules (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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