Word.ws English Dictionary

play by the rules

play by the rules verb: to do what is expected.

Verb

play by the rules (third-person singular simple present plays by the rules, present participle playing by the rules, simple past and past participle played by the rules)

  1. to do what is expected.
    • Perhaps because it played by the rules while challenging them at the same time, Brokeback Mountain's place in film history is assured.2025 June 20, Nick Levine, “'In every theatre, people would leave': How 'gay cowboy movie' Brokeback Mountain challenged Hollywood – and the US”, in BBC
    Synonyms:
    play the game

Synonyms of play by the rules

Forms of play by the rules

third-person singular presentplays by the rules
present participleplaying by the rules
past participleplayed by the rules
pastplayed by the rules

Questions about play by the rules

What does play by the rules mean?
Play by the rules means to do what is expected.
What part of speech is play by the rules?
Play by the rules is a verb.
What is the past tense of play by the rules?
The past tense of play by the rules is played by the rules.

Words near play by the rules in the dictionary

  1. play both ends against the middle
  2. play both sides against the middle
  3. play bow
  4. play bows
  5. play by ear
  6. play by the rules
  7. play catch-up
  8. play cheat
  9. play chicken
  10. play clock
  11. play clocks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: play by 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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Cite this entry: “play by the rules.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/play_by_the_rules. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.