Word.ws English Dictionary

rulebound

rulebound adjective: bound by rules; rigidly uncompromising.

Adjective

rulebound (comparative more rulebound, superlative most rulebound)

  1. Bound by rules; rigidly uncompromising.
    • Reality television is pretty rulebound, and it works by upsets.2007 January 6, Virginia Heffernan, “Hey, Young Writers, That’s Mr. Rolling Stone to You”, in New York Times

Forms of rulebound

comparativemore rulebound
superlativemost rulebound

Origin of rulebound

From rule + bound.

Questions about rulebound

What does rulebound mean?
Rulebound means bound by rules; rigidly uncompromising.
What part of speech is rulebound?
Rulebound is an adjective.

Words near rulebound in the dictionary

  1. rule-of-thumb
  2. ruleable
  3. ruleage
  4. rulebook
  5. rulebooks
  6. rulebound
  7. rulebreaker
  8. rulebreakers
  9. rulebreaking
  10. ruled
  11. ruled in

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rulebound (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: “rulebound.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rulebound. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.