A rectangular Wilson loop centered at the origin, with sides parallel to space and time directions and length 2 L and 2 T respectively, is perturbatively evaluated O (g 4) in the Feynman gauge for the Yang-Mills theory in 1 + ( D − 1) dimensions. When D > 2, there is a dependence on the dimensionless ratio L/ T, besides the area. In the limit T → ∞, keeping D > 2, the leading expression of the loop involves only the Casimir constant C F of the fundamental representation and is thereby in agreement with the expected Abelian-like time exponentiation (ALTE). At D = 2 the result depends also on C A , the Casimir constant of the adjoint representation and a pure area law behaviour is recovered, but no agreement with ALTE in the limit T → ∞. Consequences of these results concerning two- and higher-dimensional gauge theories are pointed out.