1847 A. De Morgan 75 The newness of plan seems to consist in putting the rules into unintelligible verse, and beating even the older rule-mongers in puzzling plain questions.
1857 J. Hamilton 195 The stinted and external compliance of the rubricist and rule-monger.
2006 E. Brink vi. 111 I might have quoted the rule forbidding men to enter Responsibility House, but I did not want to be seen as a petty rule-monger.