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.
“Imagine what our real neighborhoods would be like,” Fred Rogers once said, “if each of us offered, as a matter of course, just one kind word to another person.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 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
And that’s how the pardon power operated in early American history: Prosecutors and judges routinely recommended clemency in unjust cases, which presidents granted as a matter of course.
From Slate ● Dec. 2, 2024
It was a fine morning; many people around him were troubled, he knew, but that was a part of the adult world which he accepted as a matter of course.
From "Across Five Aprils" by Irene Hunt
Instead of being transfixed, Herbert replied in an easy matter-of-course way, “Exactly. Well?”
From "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
“Convicts, sergeant?” asked Mr. Wopsle, in a matter-of-course way.
From "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
"He did give her pearls," said Dick, with a matter-of-course air of inner knowledge.
From The Honour of the Clintons by Marshall, Archibald
As with Love, so with Fatherhood, we take it as matter-of-course that this sprang and has evolved to present developments directly out of natural instinct.
From Feminism and Sex-Extinction by Kenealy, Arabella
She was proud of the matter-of-course manner of the remark.
From The Old Blood by Palmer, Frederick
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.
