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Rank and file

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For the separate terms "rank" and "file" in chess, see Chess terminology.
For the chess notation system assigning letters to files and numbers to ranks, see Algebraic chess notation.
Look up rank and file in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

In politics and labor unions the rank and file are the individual members of an organization, exclusive of its leadership. The phrase originated in the military, denoting the horizontal "ranks" and vertical "files" of individual foot-soldiers, exclusive of the noncommissioned officers.[1]

References

  1. ^ "rank and file". Dictionary.com, LLC. Retrieved 2011-03-04.


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