occurring or proceeding in or as if in the logical, natural, or customary course of things; expected or inevitable.
accepting things as occurring in their natural course, or characterized by an acceptance of things as such.
to be matter-of-course in confronting the difficulties of existence.
(usually postpositive) occurring as a matter of course
accepting things as inevitable or natural
a matter-of-course attitude
First recorded in 1730–40
First recorded in 1830–40
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
For the first time in the 96-year history of the World Cup, matches have been interrupted around the 22nd and 67th minutes as a matter of course.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 13, 2026
Which brings me to my optimistic long-term prediction: The world will become a safer place once leaders, as a matter of course, feed their strategic ambitions and calculations through an LLM before acting on them.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 31, 2026
No matter, of course, because the team’s current roster also includes Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 13, 2025
These are “de novo” mutations that pop up randomly; most are far too rare to be worth testing for prenatally as a matter of course.
From Slate • Jan. 28, 2024
The judges then indicated that as a matter of course they would talk with me privately.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
