ruletaker

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noun

One who receives rules made by others and is obligated to follow them.

“Our organization sets its own standards in various ways, but on the topic of backward compatibility of these cartridges, we are in the role of ruletaker rather than rulemaker.”

Scrabble 13

Meanings

nounruletaker (plural ruletakers)

plural ruletakers

  1. One who receives rules made by others and is obligated to follow them.

    Our organization sets its own standards in various ways, but on the topic of backward compatibility of these cartridges, we are in the role of ruletaker rather than rulemaker.

    4 more examples

    Since Brexit, there is a balance to strike regarding Britain's voluntarily implementing EU standards: most Britons (both pro-Brexit and anti-Brexit) are willing to prevent senseless bureaucratic bottlenecks in trade, but Brexit-minded Britons are wary that Britain be careful not to allow itself to backslide into being too much the ruletaker.

    Latin America has been incorporated into the still-emerging international system—but as a "ruletaker," not a "rulemaker," conclude political scientists Joseph S. Tulchin and Ralph H. Espach.

    2001, Manfred Mols, Internationale Politik, volume 2, number 4, Frankfurter Societäts-Druckerei, page 110

    Codes also flow through different disciplines from law and business to political science. Who drafts the code (the rulemaker), and who is regulated by it (the ruletaker)? Whose voice is heard, and whose voice is silenced? How much influence, if any, does the voice of the worker have on codes?

    2019, Vanisha H. Sukdeo, Corporate Law, Codes of Conduct and Workers' Rights (Routledge Research in Corporate Law), Routledge, →ISBN

    In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when Scotland enjoyed a lead through the development of its native higher education tradition rather than being a ruletaker from an increasingly centralized British system, its strong focus on links between business and study, and later in some universities between study and industry, were important in driving innovation.

    2022, Murray Pittock, Scotland: The Global History: 1603 to the Present, Yale University Press, →ISBN, page 252

Origin

From rule + taker. Late 20th century. Came after, and was modeled on, rulemaker. Not common until the 2010s.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

ruletaker. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ruletaker

MLA

“ruletaker.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ruletaker. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “ruletaker,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ruletaker.

Source: ruletaker on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.