as a rule

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Adverb

as a rule

1. (idiomatic) In general; most often.

   We go fishing every Sunday as a rule, but today the lake is frozen.

   • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter II, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

     His forefathers had been, as a rule, professional men—physicians and lawyers; his grandfather died under the walls of Chapultepec Castle while twisting a tourniquet for a cursing dragoon; an uncle remained indefinitely at Malvern Hill; […].

   • 1918, William Strunk, Jr., The Elements of Style:

     As a rule, single sentences should not be written or printed as paragraphs. An exception may be made of sentences of transition, indicating the relation between the parts of an exposition or argument.

Synonyms

• by and large, chiefly, for the most part; see also Thesaurus:mostly or Thesaurus:usually

Translations

in general; most often

• Armenian: սովորաբար (hy) (sovorabar), որպես օրենք (orpes ōrenkʻ)
• Bashkir: ғәҙәттә (ğəźəttə)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 一般說來／一般说来 (zh) (yībān shuō lái), 一般來說／一般来说 (zh) (yībān lái shuō), 通常 (zh) (tōngcháng)

• Danish: som regel
• Finnish: yleensä (fi), tavallisesti (fi), säännönmukaisesti (fi)
• French: généralement (fr), normalement (fr), en règle générale (fr)
• Georgian: როგორც წესი (rogorc c̣esi)
• German: in der Regel (de), normalerweise (de), gewöhnlich (de)
• Irish: de ghnáth
• Italian: di regola, solitamente (it), generalmente (it)
• Japanese: 概して (ja) (がいして, gai-shite), 原則として (げんそくとして, gensoku-to shite)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: som regel

  Nynorsk: som regel

• Polish: z reguły (pl), z zasady (pl)
• Portuguese: em regra, por via de regra, via de regra
• Russian: как пра́вило (ru) (kak právilo), обы́чно (ru) (obýčno)
• Spanish: normalmente (es), por regla general
• Swedish: som regel (sv), i regel (sv)
• Ukrainian: як пра́вило (jak právylo), звича́йно (zvyčájno)

Anagrams

• Lareaus, laesura