Word.ws English Dictionary

rule the school

rule the school verb: to substantially control a school administratively, financially, or in terms of its curriculum.

Verb

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

  1. To substantially control a school administratively, financially, or in terms of its curriculum.
    • After Page, Dr. E. Goodenough ruled the school from 1819 to 1828. On his retirement he obtained the deanery of Wells ...1884, George Augustus Sala with Edmund Hodgson Yates, “Westminster School”, in Temple bar, volume 71, page 504
  2. (idiomatic) (of one or a group of students) To socially dominate a school's student population, or a major part of it (such as the girls or the boys).
    • But as Shelley was by far the cleverest of the three head boys who were there, he ruled the school.1847, William Edward Heygate, Godfrey Davenant, page 123

Forms of rule the school

third-person singular presentrules the school
present participleruling the school
past participleruled the school
pastruled the school

Questions about rule the school

What does rule the school mean?
Rule the school means to substantially control a school administratively, financially, or in terms of its curriculum.
What part of speech is rule the school?
Rule the school is a verb.
What is the past tense of rule the school?
The past tense of rule the school is ruled the school.

Words near rule the school in the dictionary

  1. rule set
  2. rule sets
  3. rule the day
  4. rule the roast
  5. rule the roost
  6. rule the school
  7. rule utilitarianism
  8. rule with a rod of iron
  9. rule-based
  10. rule-book
  11. rule-books

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rule the school (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-rule the school.ogg.

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