Word.ws English Dictionary

by-the-book

by-the-book adjective: strictly adhering to rules, legal requirements, or official procedures.

Adjective

by-the-book (comparative more by-the-book, superlative most by-the-book)

  1. (idiomatic) Strictly adhering to rules, legal requirements, or official procedures.
    • Given the troubled Bayou State's long history of rogues and demagogues, the most unusual thing about Gov. Jindal may be his record of by-the-book ethics.2007 December 11, David von Drehle, “Bobby Jindal”, in Time

by-the-book meaning in Bengali

by-the-book in Bengali

নিয়ম

Forms of by-the-book

comparativemore by-the-book
superlativemost by-the-book
alternative formby-the-books

Questions about by-the-book

What does by-the-book mean?
By-the-book means strictly adhering to rules, legal requirements, or official procedures.
What is by-the-book in Bengali?
By-the-book in Bengali is নিয়ম. See By-the-book meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is by-the-book?
By-the-book is an adjective.

Words near by-the-book in the dictionary

  1. by-street
  2. by-streets
  3. by-stroke
  4. by-strokes
  5. by-table
  6. by-the-book
  7. by-the-books
  8. by-the-by
  9. by-the-bye
  10. by-the-numbers
  11. by-the-wind sailor

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: by-the-book (page history and authors); by-the-book (Bengali Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-by-the-book.ogg.

Cite this entry: “by-the-book.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/by-the-book. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.