Word.ws English Dictionary

played by the rules

played by the rules is the simple past and past participle of play by the rules.

Meaning of play by the rules

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

Questions about played by the rules

What is played by the rules the simple past and past participle of?
Played by the rules is the simple past and past participle of play by the rules.

Words near played by the rules in the dictionary

  1. played ball
  2. played big
  3. played booty
  4. played both sides against the middle
  5. played by ear
  6. played by the rules
  7. played cheat
  8. played chicken
  9. played Cupid
  10. played dead
  11. played dirty

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: played by the rules (page history and authors); 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: “played by the rules.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/played_by_the_rules. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.