- 1基層成員（相對領導層）
The rank and file are the ordinary members of a group, not the people in charge. A union, a political party, a company, an army: leaders make the speeches; the rank and file show up, pay, vote, and do the work. The phrase comes from old army life. Soldiers stood in ranks — rows, side by side — and files — lines, one behind another. The officers stood apart. So rank and file first named the common soldiers, and then, by stretch, the common members of any organisation. You will see when it sits in front of a noun (rank-and-file members) and often none when it is the thing itself (the rank and file). Though actually, it is easy to hear rank and think of high position — but these are the people without that position.
rank-and-file 指的是一個團體裡的普通成員，不是負責的人。工會、政黨、公司或軍隊裡，領導的人負責講話，基層成員則是參加、繳費、投票，也做實際的工作。
這個詞原本是軍隊用語。士兵站成 rank（橫排）和 file（直行），軍官則站在一旁。所以它先指一般的士兵，後來才延伸到任何組織的一般成員。放在名詞前面時通常寫成連字號，例如 「rank-and-file members」；當它自己就是那一群人時，常寫成 「the rank and file」，中間不加連字號。要注意，rank 這個字容易讓人想到高職位，但這個詞說的正好是沒有那種職位的人。
組成rank (a row of soldiers standing side by side) + file (a line of soldiers standing one behind another).
原始詞典資料2 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
rank-and-fileadj
- 1
Belonging or pertaining to the rank and file.
- The morale of the rank-and-file Highland railwaymen has remained remarkably high, in view of the extent to which the London press and many an English M.P. have already discarded their railways.
- Rank-and-file progressives don’t usually think of the immigration policies they support—expanding refugee quotas, easing restrictions on some classes of immigrants, and ending family separation—as an endorsement of detention, deportation, and racialized terror.
這個拼法也被記錄為下列字的變化形：
- rank and file
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。