Word.ws English Dictionary

rule in

rule in verb: to consider (something) as a possible option among others.

Verb

rule in (third-person singular simple present rules in, present participle ruling in, simple past and past participle ruled in)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To consider (something) as a possible option among others.
    • It was coming from a credible source, someone with a track record, someone who was a credible and respected member of an allied intelligence service during his career, and so it was important that we try to understand it, and see what could we verify, what could we rule in or rule out.2018 April 15, James Comey, “ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)
    Synonyms:
    consider

Synonyms of rule in

Antonyms

Forms of rule in

third-person singular presentrules in
present participleruling in
past participleruled in
pastruled in

Origin of rule in

By analogy with rule out.

Questions about rule in

What does rule in mean?
Rule in means to consider (something) as a possible option among others.
What part of speech is rule in?
Rule in is a verb.
What is the past tense of rule in?
The past tense of rule in is ruled in.

Words near rule in in the dictionary

  1. rule book
  2. rule books
  3. rule breaker
  4. rule follower
  5. rule followers
  6. rule in
  7. rule joint
  8. rule joints
  9. rule nisi
  10. rule of 72
  11. rule of Colel

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rule in (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-rule in.ogg.

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