Word.ws English Dictionary

by the book

by the book prepositional phrase: in a manner which strictly adheres to rules, legal requirements, or official procedures.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) In a manner which strictly adheres to rules, legal requirements, or official procedures.
    • As far as he is concerned, he umpired by the book.2006 August 27, Simon Robinson, “It's Not Just Cricket”, in Time
  2. (broadly, idiomatic) In a manner which appears too studied, ritualized, and therefore artificial.
    • Romeo: Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
      Give me my sin again.
      They kiss again.
      Juliet: You kiss by th' book.c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...

by the book meaning in Tamil and Malayalam

by the book in Tamil

விதிகளை மீறாமல் செயல்படுதல், விதிகளின்படி செயல்படுதல், நெறிப்படி ஒழுகுதல்

by the book in Malayalam

lawfully, according to the rules, within the law
ചട്ടമനുസരിച്ച്, ചട്ടപ്രകാരം, നിയമാനുസാരേണ, നിയമാനുസൃതമായി, യഥാന്യായം, നിയമപ്രകാരം

Forms of by the book

alternative formby-the-book

Questions about by the book

What does by the book mean?
By the book means in a manner which strictly adheres to rules, legal requirements, or official procedures.
What is by the book in Tamil?
By the book in Tamil is விதிகளை மீறாமல் செயல்படுதல், விதிகளின்படி செயல்படுதல், நெறிப்படி ஒழுகுதல். See By the book meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is by the book?
By the book is a prepositional phrase.

Words near by the book in the dictionary

  1. by sail
  2. by sight
  3. by some distance
  4. by starts and leaps
  5. by steam
  6. by the book
  7. by the by
  8. by the bye
  9. by the day
  10. by the dozen
  11. by the ears

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: by the book (page history and authors); by the book (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); by the book (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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.

Last updated:

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.