Word.ws English Dictionary

exercise for the reader

exercise for the reader noun: used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see exercise, for, the, reader.

Noun

exercise for the reader (plural exercises for the reader)

  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see exercise, for, the, reader.
  2. (broadly) A matter left to the addressee's judgement to decide.
    • She does not ask to see the dossier on this man before she goes, even though the co-worker has said that he has seen it, etc. The credibility of this conduct is another matter and is left as an exercise for the reader.2003, Wells Earl Draughon, Advanced Writing: Fiction and Film, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 167
    • Moreover, determining what is “passionate,” “artistic,” and “suitable for young children” is left as an exercise for the reader.2006, Hossein Bidgoli, Handbook of Information Security, Information Warfare, Social, Legal, and International Issues and Security Foundations, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 413

Forms of exercise for the reader

pluralexercises for the reader

Origin of exercise for the reader

From academic writing. One of the first known recorded occurrences of this phrase is in An Elementary Course of Mathematics by Thomas Stephens Davies, Stephen Fenwick, and William Rutherford from 1853.

Questions about exercise for the reader

What does exercise for the reader mean?
Exercise for the reader means used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see exercise, for, the, reader.
What part of speech is exercise for the reader?
Exercise for the reader is a noun.
What is the plural of exercise for the reader?
The plural of exercise for the reader is exercises for the reader.

Words near exercise for the reader in the dictionary

  1. exercise boy
  2. exercise boys
  3. exercise bulimia
  4. exercise cycle
  5. exercise cycles
  6. exercise for the reader
  7. exercise in futility
  8. exercise machine
  9. exercise machines
  10. exercise price
  11. exercise prices

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: exercise for the reader (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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