Word.ws English Dictionary

cardinal rule

cardinal rule noun: a fundamental rule, upon which other matters hinge.

Noun

cardinal rule (plural cardinal rules)

  1. A fundamental rule, upon which other matters hinge.
    • Obviously they were well aware of the cardinal rule of being a college freshman: all's fair in innocent prankage.2011, John Randall Tabor, Homer Is Where the Heart Is, page 132

Forms of cardinal rule

pluralcardinal rules

Questions about cardinal rule

What does cardinal rule mean?
Cardinal rule means a fundamental rule, upon which other matters hinge.
What part of speech is cardinal rule?
Cardinal rule is a noun.
What is the plural of cardinal rule?
The plural of cardinal rule is cardinal rules.

Words near cardinal rule in the dictionary

  1. cardinal numerals
  2. cardinal point
  3. cardinal points
  4. cardinal red
  5. cardinal reds
  6. cardinal rule
  7. cardinal rules
  8. cardinal sin
  9. cardinal sins
  10. cardinal spider
  11. cardinal spiders

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cardinal rule (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “cardinal rule.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cardinal_rule. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.