Word.ws English Dictionary

work to rules

work to rules is the plural of work to rule.

Meaning 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.

Questions about work to rules

What is work to rules the plural of?
Work to rules is the plural of work to rule.

Words near work to rules in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: work to rules (page history and authors); 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.

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