Word.ws English Dictionary

routine

UK/ɹuːˈtiːn//ɹuˈtin/

routine noun: a course of action to be followed regularly; a standard procedure.

Noun

routine (countable and uncountable, plural routines)

  1. A course of action to be followed regularly; a standard procedure.
    Synonyms:
    habit, wont, ritual
  2. A set of normal procedures, often performed mechanically.
    • Connie was completely robotic and emotionless by age 12; her entire life had become one big routine.
    • It is never possible to settle down to the ordinary routine of life at sea until the screw begins to revolve. There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy.1915, G[eorge] A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter I, in Gossamer, New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran Company, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    rut
  3. A set piece of an entertainer's act.
    • stand-up comedy routine
  4. (rhythmic gymnastics) A performance, execution of gymnastics for one of the apparatus.
    Synonyms:
    composition
  5. A set of instructions designed to perform a specific task; a subroutine.

Adjective

routine (comparative more routine, superlative most routine)

  1. According to established procedure.
    • "Morning, inspector," affably remarked the cripple—he had not failed to observe the badge—"rather early for your job, eh? Nothing wrong with our supply up here, I hope, eh?"
      "Nothing at all, sir," said the inspector. "Just an ordinary routine round. We do them regularly."1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London
  2. Regular; habitual.
    • Pepper's forgiven me in the quiet, hurt way women sometimes forgive. She doesn't cry. She doesn't smile either. She's being routine.1993, Tristan Hawkins, Pepper, London: Flamingo, →ISBN, page 108
    • Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine.[…]One thing that is true, though, is that murder rates have fallen over the centuries, as policing has spread and the routine carrying of weapons has diminished. Modern society may...2013 July 20, “Old soldiers?”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845, archived from the original on 24 Aug 2013
  3. Ordinary with nothing to distinguish it from all the others.
    • Stoke put themselves in a fine position to qualify for the Europa League knockout stage with a routine victory over Maccabi Tel-Aviv in Israel.2011 November 3, David Ornstein, “Macc Tel-Aviv 1-2 Stoke”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 11 Jan 2012
  4. Boringly predictable, monotonous, and unchanging
    • I found the work pretty routine.

routine meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

routine in Hindi

course of action to be followed regularly; a standard procedure
दिनचर्या dincaryā

routine in Tamil

சாதாரண, நடைமுறை, வழக்கமான

routine in Marathi

नित्यक्रम

routine in Urdu

عادت, اسلوب, بندھا ٹکا, معمول
More languagesFewer languages
routine in Bengali
নিত্যকর্ম nityôkôrmô
routine in Telugu
రొటీన్
routine in Malayalam
പതിവ്, കാര്യക്രമം, നടപടി, ദിനചര്യ
routine in Kannada
ಯಾವಾಗಿನ ಕೆಲಸ, ಯಾವಾಗಿನ ಹಾದಿ, ದಿನಚರಿ, ದಿನನಿತ್ಯದ ಕಾರ್ಯಕಲಾಪ
routine in Punjabi
ਨਿਤਨੇਮ nitnem
routine in Gujarati
રૂટિન, નિત્યક્રમ
routine in Odia
ରୁଟିନ୍, ରୁଟିନ
routine in Arabic
رُوتِين rūtīn
routine in Indonesian
rutin
routine in Persian
روال

Examples of routine in a sentence

  • That routine should not have used an int; it should be a float.
  • My best routine was the one I had practised the least.
  • It was a stylish routine, let down by a sloppy dismount.

All 40 example sentences with routine

Synonyms of routine

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of routine

Forms of routine

Noun
pluralroutines
Adjective
comparativemore routine
superlativemost routine

Plural of routine: routines

Origin of routine

Unadapted borrowing from French routine. By surface analysis, route + -ine. Further from Latin rupta via. Compare typologically travel << Latin tripālium, whence also travail, note the inverse semantic vector from a subjective state (toil) to an objective action (journey). Also compare Czech běžný (< běžet), Russian обихо́д (obixód), обихо́дный (obixódnyj) (akin to ходи́ть (xodítʹ)).

Words formed from routine

Phrases with routine

Words that rhyme with routine

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about routine

What does routine mean?
Routine means a course of action to be followed regularly; a standard procedure.
What is routine in Hindi?
Routine in Hindi is दिनचर्या (dincaryā). See Routine meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is routine?
Routine can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce routine?
Routine is pronounced /ɹuːˈtiːn/ (UK).
What is the plural of routine?
The plural of routine is routines.

Words near routine in the dictionary

  1. Rouths
  2. routier
  3. routiers
  4. routinal
  5. routinary
  6. routine
  7. routine response behavior
  8. routine response behaviors
  9. routine response behaviour
  10. routine response behaviours
  11. routined

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: routine (page history and authors); routine (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); routine (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); routine (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); নিত্যকর্ম (Bengali) (page history and authors); routine (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); routine (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); routine (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਨਿਤਨੇਮ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); routine (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); routine (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model 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-us-routine.ogg.

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