"work to rule" meaning in All languages combined

See work to rule on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Audio: En-au-work to rule.ogg [Australia] Forms: work to rules [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} work to rule (plural work to rules)
  1. Alternative spelling of work-to-rule Tags: alt-of, alternative Alternative form of: work-to-rule
    Sense id: en-work_to_rule-en-noun-pLyC-4Xq

Verb [English]

Audio: En-au-work to rule.ogg [Australia] Forms: works to rule [present, singular, third-person], working to rule [participle, present], worked to rule [participle, past], worked to rule [past]
Head templates: {{en-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. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: work to rules, work-to-rule
    Sense id: en-work_to_rule-en-verb-1ozlkaa0 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English predicates Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 13 87 Disambiguation of English predicates: 26 74

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for work to rule meaning in All languages combined (2.6kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "works to rule",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "working to rule",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "worked to rule",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "worked to rule",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "work to rule (third-person singular simple present works to rule, present participle working to rule, simple past and past participle worked to rule)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "13 87",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "26 74",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English predicates",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To work slowly by strictly following all work rules, usually in a work-to-rule job action, as part of unionized labor protest."
      ],
      "id": "en-work_to_rule-en-verb-1ozlkaa0",
      "links": [
        [
          "slowly",
          "slowly"
        ],
        [
          "work-to-rule",
          "work-to-rule"
        ],
        [
          "job action",
          "job action"
        ],
        [
          "unionize",
          "unionize"
        ],
        [
          "labor",
          "labor"
        ],
        [
          "protest",
          "protest"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To work slowly by strictly following all work rules, usually in a work-to-rule job action, as part of unionized labor protest."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "74 26",
          "word": "work to rules"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "74 26",
          "word": "work-to-rule"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-work to rule.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/ea/En-au-work_to_rule.ogg/En-au-work_to_rule.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/En-au-work_to_rule.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "work to rule"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "work to rules",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "work to rule (plural work to rules)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "word": "work-to-rule"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Alternative spelling of work-to-rule"
      ],
      "id": "en-work_to_rule-en-noun-pLyC-4Xq",
      "links": [
        [
          "work-to-rule",
          "work-to-rule#English"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "alt-of",
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-work to rule.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/ea/En-au-work_to_rule.ogg/En-au-work_to_rule.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/En-au-work_to_rule.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "work to rule"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English predicates",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "works to rule",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "working to rule",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "worked to rule",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "worked to rule",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "work to rule (third-person singular simple present works to rule, present participle working to rule, simple past and past participle worked to rule)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To work slowly by strictly following all work rules, usually in a work-to-rule job action, as part of unionized labor protest."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "slowly",
          "slowly"
        ],
        [
          "work-to-rule",
          "work-to-rule"
        ],
        [
          "job action",
          "job action"
        ],
        [
          "unionize",
          "unionize"
        ],
        [
          "labor",
          "labor"
        ],
        [
          "protest",
          "protest"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To work slowly by strictly following all work rules, usually in a work-to-rule job action, as part of unionized labor protest."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-work to rule.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/ea/En-au-work_to_rule.ogg/En-au-work_to_rule.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/En-au-work_to_rule.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "work to rules"
    },
    {
      "word": "work-to-rule"
    }
  ],
  "word": "work to rule"
}

{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English predicates",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "work to rules",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "work to rule (plural work to rules)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "word": "work-to-rule"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Alternative spelling of work-to-rule"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "work-to-rule",
          "work-to-rule#English"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "alt-of",
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-work to rule.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/ea/En-au-work_to_rule.ogg/En-au-work_to_rule.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/En-au-work_to_rule.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "work to rules"
    },
    {
      "word": "work-to-rule"
    }
  ],
  "word": "work to rule"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.