Other forms: regulars
Regular means happening again and again at the same fixed intervals. A regular bus, regular meetings, at regular intervals.
It also means usual or normal — a regular customer, the regular price — and in grammar it means following the standard pattern: regular verbs take -ed, irregular ones do not. In American English regular is also the standard size, as against large: a regular coffee. Note the medical use, where regular means having normal bowel movements, which is why advertisements say it so carefully. The adverb regularly and the noun regularity are both straightforward.
1adjectiveregularHappening at fixed intervals.
“There is a regular service every twenty minutes.”
2adjectiveusualUsual or normal.
“Ask for the regular price, not the offer.”
3nounfrequentA frequent customer or visitor.
“The regulars sit at the same table every Friday.”
4adjectivegrammarIn grammar, following the standard pattern.
“Most English verbs are regular.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
regular is a pattern of recurrence.
Latin regularis comes from regula, a straight stick or ruler — the same word that gives rule. Something regular follows the rule, and the physical straightedge is inside both words.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₃reǵ- — move in a straight line
Latin
rēgulāris — continuing rules for guidance
Middle French
reguler
Anglo-Norman
reguler
Middle English
reguler
English, today
regular
Built from
From Middle English reguler, from Anglo-Norman reguler, Middle French reguler, regulier, and their source, Latin rēgulāris (“continuing rules for guidance”), from rēgula (“rule”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European h₃reǵ- (“move in a straight line”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA