regular

English

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regular

Wikipedia

Etymology

From Middle English reguler, from Anglo-Norman reguler, Middle French reguler, regulier, and their source, Latin rēgulāris (“continuing rules for guidance”), from rēgula (“rule”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *reg- (“move in a straight line”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: regʹyo͝olər IPA^(key): /ˈɹɛɡ.jʊ.lə/
• (US) enPR: regʹyələr, regʹlər, IPA^(key): /ˈɹɛɡ.jə.lɚ/, /ˈɹɛɡ.l̩ɚ/, ,

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• (US) Hyphenation: reg‧u‧lar
• Rhymes: -ɛɡjʊlə(ɹ), -ɛɡjələ(ɹ), -ɛɡələ(ɹ)

Adjective

regular (comparative more regular, superlative most regular)

1. (Christianity) Bound by religious rule; belonging to a monastic or religious order (often as opposed to secular).

   regular clergy, in distinction from the secular clergy

   • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 201:

     A quarter of a million strong in 1680, the clergy was only half as large in 1789. The unpopular regular clergy were the worst affected.

2. Having a constant pattern; showing evenness of form or appearance.

   Synonyms: equable, uniform, unvarying; see also Thesaurus:steady

   Antonyms: chaotic, irregular; see also Thesaurus:unsteady

3. (geometry, of a polygon) Both equilateral and equiangular; having all sides of the same length, and all (corresponding) angles of the same size
4. (geometry, of a polyhedron) Whose faces are all congruent regular polygons, equally inclined to each other.
5. Demonstrating a consistent set of rules; showing order, evenness of operation or occurrence.

   Synonyms: in order, ruly, tidy; see also Thesaurus:orderly

   Antonyms: chaotic, tumultuous; see also Thesaurus:disorderly

   • 2011 April 12, A[lison] L[ouise] Kennedy, The Guardian:

     April may be the cruellest month, but I am planning to render it civilised and to take my antibiotics in a regular manner.

6. (astronomy) Of a moon or other satellite: following a relatively close and prograde orbit with little inclination or eccentricity.
7. (now rare) Well-behaved, orderly; restrained (of a lifestyle etc.).

   Synonyms: decent, seemly, well-mannered

   Antonyms: degenerate, irregular

8. Happening at constant (especially short) intervals.

   Synonyms: cyclical, frequent; see also Thesaurus:periodic

   Antonyms: irregular, noncyclic

   He made regular visits to go see his mother.

9. (grammar, of a verb, plural, etc) Following a set or common pattern; according to the normal rules of a given language.

   Synonym: (verbs) weak

   Antonyms: irregular, (verbs) strong

   "Walked" is the past tense of the regular verb "to walk".

10. (chiefly US) Having the expected characteristics or appearances; normal, ordinary, standard.

    Synonyms: basic, common, unremarkable; see also Thesaurus:normal, Thesaurus:common

    Antonyms: irregular, outlandish, weird; see also Thesaurus:strange

    • 1868-69, Louisa May Alcott, chapter 21, in Little Women‎, part 1:

      “I don’t see how you can write and act such splendid things, Jo. You’re a regular Shakespeare!” exclaimed Beth, who firmly believed that her sisters were gifted with wonderful genius in all things.

    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

      For a spell we done pretty well. Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand.

11. (chiefly military) Permanently organised; being part of a set professional body of troops.

    Antonym: irregular

12. Having bowel movements or menstrual periods at constant intervals in the expected way.

    Maintaining a high-fibre diet keeps you regular.

    • 2015, Bill Bryson, The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island, page 206:

      Gulls cawed and wheeled overhead, dropping splatty white cluster bombs on rooftops and pavements. Goodness knows what those gulls eat, but it certainly keeps them regular.

13. (colloquial) Exemplary; excellent example of; utter, downright.

    Synonyms: absolute, thorough, unalloyed; see also Thesaurus:total

    a regular genius; a regular John Bull

    • 1997 February 16, Ron Hauge, Homer's Phobia (The Simpsons), season 8, episode 15, spoken by Homer Simpson (Dan Castellaneta):

      Don't worry, boy. We're gonna set you straight. By tomorrow morning, you'll be a regular Burt Reynolds.

14. (botany, zoology) Having all the parts of the same kind alike in size and shape.

    a regular flower; a regular sea urchin

15. (crystallography) Isometric.
16. (snowboarding) Riding with the left foot forward.

    Antonym: goofy

17. (mathematical analysis, not comparable, of a Borel measure) Such that every set in its domain is both outer regular and inner regular.
19. (commutative algebra, not comparable, of a local ring) Noetherian and such that the minimal number of generators of the maximal ideal is equal to the Krull dimension of the ring.
20. (algebraic geometry, not comparable, of a scheme) Such that the local ring at every point is regular.
21. (obsolete, not comparable, of a ring) von Neumann regular: such that every left module (over the given ring) is flat.

    Synonym: absolutely flat

Antonyms

• irregular
• non-regular, nonregular

Coordinate terms

• (snowboarding): switch

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Adverb

regular (not comparable)

1. (archaic, dialect, nonstandard) Regularly, on a regular basis.
   • 1861, George Eliot, Silas Marner, London: Penguin Books, published 1967, page 131:

     'And if the knowledge wasn'y well come by, why, you might ha' made up for it by coming to church reg'lar.'

   • 1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:

     Though no minister would visit the Skerburnfoot, or, if he went, departed quicker than he came, the girl Ailie attended regular at the catechising at the mains of Sker.

   • 1961, Colin Thiele, The Sun on the Stubble, Melbourne: Rigby Limited, page 113:

     "Drain her every thousand, regular. Don't do it myself, o' course; just drop her in at the lubritorium."

   • 1988, Mary Steele, Mallyroot's Pub at Misery Ponds, Ringwood: Puffin Books, page 37:

     "All we've got to do is stick 'em in the bedroom and feed 'em regular."

Noun

regular (plural regulars)

1. A member of the British Army (as opposed to a member of the Territorial Army or Reserve).
2. A frequent, routine visitor to an establishment.

   Bartenders usually know their regulars by name.

3. A member of an armed forces or police force.
4. A frequent customer, client or business partner.

   This gentleman was one of the architect's regulars.

5. (Canada) A coffee with one cream and one sugar.
6. Anything that is normal or standard.
   • 2011, Jamie MacLennan, ZhaoHui Tang, Bogdan Crivat, Data Mining with Microsoft SQL Server 2008:

     You separate the marbles by color until you have four groups, but then you notice that some of the marbles are regulars, some are shooters, and some are peewees.

7. A member of a religious order who has taken the three ordinary vows.
8. A number for each year, giving, added to the concurrents, the number of the day of the week on which the Paschal full moon falls.
9. A fixed number for each month serving to ascertain the day of the week, or the age of the moon, on the first day of any month.

Synonyms

• (routine visitor): frequenter, habitué, patron, usual suspects

Antonyms

• non-regular, nonregular

Translations

References

• “regular”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “regular”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Asturian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /reɡuˈlaɾ/,
• Rhymes: -aɾ
• Hyphenation: re‧gu‧lar

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Late Latin rēgulāris.

Adjective

regular (epicene, plural regulares)

1. regular
2. fine, OK, average

Related terms

• regularidá

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Latin rēgulāre, present active infinitive of rēgulō. Compare the doublet reglar, borrowed earlier from the same source.

Verb

regular (first-person singular indicative present regulo, past participle reguláu)

1. to regulate

Conjugation

Catalan

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Late Latin rēgulāris.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central)
• IPA^(key): (Balearic)
• IPA^(key): (Valencian)
• Rhymes: -aɾ

Adjective

regular m or f (masculine and feminine plural regulars)

1. regular (having a constant pattern)

   Antonym: irregular

2. normal, average
3. (geometry) regular (both equilateral and equiangular)

   Antonym: irregular

Derived terms

• regularitat
• regularitzar
• regularment

Related terms

• irregular
• regla

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Latin rēgulāre.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic)
• IPA^(key): (Valencian)
• Rhymes: -a(ɾ)

Verb

regular (first-person singular present regulo, first-person singular preterite regulí, past participle regulat)

1. (transitive) to regulate

Conjugation

Derived terms

• regulador

Related terms

• regulació

Further reading

• “regular” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “regular”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2024
• “regular” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “regular” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Galician

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -aɾ
• Hyphenation: re‧gu‧lar

Etymology 1

Attested since circa 1300. Borrowed from Late Latin rēgulāris.

Adjective

regular m or f (plural regulares)

1. regular
2. average

Derived terms

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Latin rēgulō.

Verb

regular (first-person singular present regulo, first-person singular preterite regulei, past participle regulado)

1. to regulate
2. to tune (an engine)

Conjugation

References

• “regular” in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval, SLI - ILGA 2006–2022.
• “regular” in Xavier Varela Barreiro & Xavier Gómez Guinovart: Corpus Xelmírez - Corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval. SLI / Grupo TALG / ILG, 2006–2018.
• “regular” in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega, SLI - ILGA 2006–2013.
• “regular” in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega. Santiago: ILG.
• “regular” in Álvarez, Rosario (coord.): Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués, Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega.

Portuguese

Etymology 1

Learned borrowing from Late Latin rēgulāris.

Pronunciation

• Hyphenation: re‧gu‧lar

Adjective

regular m or f (plural regulares, comparable, comparative mais regular, superlative o mais regular or regularíssimo)

1. regular
2. average

Derived terms

• irregular
• regularmente

Etymology 2

Learned borrowing from Latin rēgulāre. Compare the doublet regrar, borrowed earlier from the same source.

Pronunciation

• Hyphenation: re‧gu‧lar

Verb

regular (first-person singular present regulo, first-person singular preterite regulei, past participle regulado)

1. to regulate
2. to tune (an engine)
3. to set (a watch, clock)

Conjugation

Derived terms

• regulável

Related terms

Romanian

Alternative forms

• регулар (regular) — post-1930s Cyrillic spelling

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin rēgulāris. By surface analysis, regulă +‎ -ar.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /re.ɡuˈlar/
• Rhymes: -ar
• Hyphenation: re‧gu‧lar

Adjective

regular m or n (feminine singular regulară, masculine plural regulari, feminine and neuter plural regulare)

1. regular

Declension

Further reading

• regular in DEX online—Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language)

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /reɡuˈlaɾ/

• Audio (Venezuela):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɾ
• Syllabification: re‧gu‧lar

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Late Latin rēgulāris.

Adjective

regular m or f (masculine and feminine plural regulares)

1. regular, steady, even
2. fair, fairly good, average
3. common, ordinary, middling, so-so
4. (grammar) regular

Derived terms

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Latin rēgulāre.

Verb

regular (first-person singular present regulo, first-person singular preterite regulé, past participle regulado)

1. to regulate
2. to control
3. to adjust
4. to put in order

Conjugation

Related terms

Further reading

• “regular”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014

Tagalog

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish regular.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɾeɡuˈlaɾ/,
• Hyphenation: re‧gu‧lar

Adjective

regulár (Baybayin spelling ᜇᜒᜄᜓᜎᜇ᜔)

1. regular; usual; ordinary

   Synonyms: karaniwan, pangkaraniwan

2. habitual; steady; permanent

   Synonyms: pirmihan, palagian

3. uniform; not changing
4. customary; usual

   Synonyms: katamtaman, kainaman

Derived terms

Related terms

Further reading

• “regular”, in Pambansang Diksiyonaryo | Diksiyonaryo.ph, Manila, 2018