RANKANDFILE

Rank and file

The rank and file are the individual members of a political organization or labor union, exclusive of its leadership. The phrase originated in the military, denoting the horizontal "ranks" and vertical "files" of individual foot-soldiers, exclusive of the officers and is still sometimes used to refer to the bulk of lower-ranking troops.

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rank and file

Noun

  1. Common soldiers, as would be arrayed in a grid pattern with ranks and files.
  2. Those lacking any particular title or status; those having no station.
    The executives attend meetings in exotic locations while the rank and file stays at headquarters doing the bulk of the work.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: rank and file
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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