rubric

Alternative forms

• rubrick (obsolete)

Etymology

Through Old French rubrique, from Latin rubrīca (“red ochre”), the substance used to make red letters, from ruber (“red”), from Proto-Indo-European *reudh-.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹuːbɹɪk/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

rubric (plural rubrics)

1. A heading in a book highlighted in red.
2. A title of a category or a class.

   That would fall under the rubric of things we can ignore for now.

   • 2008, Chris Dodd, Senator Dodd Speaks in Opposition to FISA Bill on Floor of U.S. Senate:

     And in one swoop, the Attorney General conceded to the president nearly unlimited power, just as long as he finds a lawyer willing to stuff his actions into the boundless rubric of “defending the country.”

3. An established rule or custom, a guideline.
   • Hook

     All the clergy in England solemnly pledge themselves to observe the rubrics.

   • De Quincey

     Nay, as a duty, it had no place or rubric in human conceptions before Christianity.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Cowper to this entry?)

4. (education) A printed set of scoring criteria for evaluating student work and for giving feedback.

Adjective

rubric (comparative more rubric, superlative most rubric)

1. Coloured or marked with red; placed in rubrics.
   • Alexander Pope

     What though my name stood rubric on the walls / Or plaistered posts, with claps, in capitals?

2. Of or relating to the rubric or rubrics; rubrical.

Verb

rubric (third-person singular simple present rubrics, present participle rubricking, simple past and past participle rubricked)

1. (transitive) To adorn with red; to redden.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Johnson to this entry?)