Word.ws English Dictionary

work to rule

work to rule verb: to work slowly by strictly following all work rules, usually in a work-to-rule job action, as part of unionized labor protest. Also the alternative spelling of work-to-rule.

Verb

work to rule (third-person singular simple present works to rule, present participle working to rule, simple past and past participle worked to rule)

  1. (idiomatic) To work slowly by strictly following all work rules, usually in a work-to-rule job action, as part of unionized labor protest.

Also used as

work to rule is also the alternative spelling of work-to-rule.

Forms of work to rule

Verb
third-person singular presentworks to rule
present participleworking to rule
past participleworked to rule
pastworked to rule
alternative formwork to rules
alternative formwork-to-rule
Noun
pluralwork to rules

Questions about work to rule

What does work to rule mean?
Work to rule means to work slowly by strictly following all work rules, usually in a work-to-rule job action, as part of unionized labor protest.
What part of speech is work to rule?
Work to rule is a verb.
What is the past tense of work to rule?
The past tense of work to rule is worked to rule.

Words near work to rule in the dictionary

  1. work the room
  2. work the system
  3. work through
  4. work time
  5. work times
  6. work to rule
  7. work to rules
  8. work together
  9. work train
  10. work trains
  11. work triangle

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: work to rule (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-work to rule.ogg.

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