Word.ws English Dictionary

working to rule

working to rule is the present participle and gerund 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 working to rule

What is working to rule the present participle and gerund of?
Working to rule is the present participle and gerund of work to rule.

Words near working to rule in the dictionary

  1. working times
  2. working timetable
  3. working timetables
  4. working title
  5. working titles
  6. working to rule
  7. working together
  8. working up
  9. working visit
  10. working visits
  11. working vocabularies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: working to rule (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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