routine

[roo-teen]

noun

1. a customary or regular course of procedure.

2. commonplace tasks, chores, or duties as must be done regularly or at specified intervals; typical or everyday activity.

   the routine of an office.

3. regular, unvarying, habitual, unimaginative, or rote procedure.

4. an unvarying and constantly repeated formula, as of speech or action; convenient or predictable response.

   Don't give me that brotherly-love routine!

5. Computers.

   1. a complete set of coded instructions directing a computer to perform a series of operations.

   2. a series of operations performed by the computer.

6. an individual act, performance, or part of a performance, as a song or dance, given regularly by an entertainer.

   a comic routine; a dance routine.

adjective

1. of the nature of, proceeding by, or adhering to routine.

   routine duties.

2. dull or uninteresting; commonplace.

   Synonyms: typical, ordinary, habitual

routine

/ ruːˈtiːn /

noun

1. a usual or regular method of procedure, esp one that is unvarying

2. computing a program or part of a program performing a specific function

   an input routine

   an output routine

3. a set sequence of dance steps

4. informal,  a hackneyed or insincere speech

adjective

1. of, relating to, or characteristic of routine

Other Word Forms

• routinely adverb
• routineness noun
• nonroutine adjective
• unroutine adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of routine¹

First recorded in 1670–80; from French, derivative of route route

Word History and Origins

Origin of routine¹

C17: from Old French, from route a customary way, _route

Example Sentences

However, many of the fruit species they regularly eat contain measurable ethanol, indicating that alcohol is a routine part of their menu and was probably present in the diets of our human ancestors as well.

Read more on Science Daily

They will walk out of both emergency and routine care, with senior doctors brought in to provide cover.

Read more on BBC

Do you have any wellness routines in the morning?

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Honestly, the whole discussion reeks of College Football Brain, that cross-affliction of entitlement and exceptionalism in which the most bizarre circumstances are treated as routine business.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

“Ideally you should be 21 to hear these jokes,” he says in the routine, “but in a perfect world we’d all be 21. Forever.”

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• act 
• custom 
• cycle 
• drill 
• groove 
• habit 
• method 
• pace 
• pattern 
• piece 
• practice 
• procedure 
• program 
• system 
• technique 
• use