as a rule

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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.

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

• Lareaus, laesura