rubric

English Wikipedia has articles on:

rubric and rubric (academic)

Wikipedia Wikipedia

• rubrick (obsolete)

From Middle English rubriche, rubrike, from Old French rubrique, from Latin rūbrīca (“red ochre”), the substance used to make red letters, from ruber (“red”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁rewdʰ-.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹuːbɹɪk/

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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. (Christianity) The directions for a religious service, formerly printed in red letters.
   • 1842, Walter Hook, Church Dictionary:

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

4. An established rule or custom; a guideline.
   • 1847-1848, Thomas De Quincey, "Protestantism", in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine

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

   • 1782, William Cowper, “Progress of Error”, in Poems, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC:

     Let Comus rise Archbishop of the land;
     Let him your rubric and your feasts prescribe

5. (education) A set of scoring criteria for evaluating student work and for giving feedback.
6. A flourish after a signature.
7. Red ochre.

• (flourish after signature): paraph
• See also Thesaurus:class

• rubricism

• rubricate
• rubicund

rubric (comparative more rubric, superlative most rubric)

1. Coloured or marked with red; placed in rubrics.
   • 1735 January 13 (Gregorian calendar; indicated as 1734), [Alexander] Pope, An Epistle from Mr. Pope, to Dr. Arbuthnot, London: […] J[ohn] Wright for Lawton Gilliver […], →OCLC, page 11, lines 210–211:

     VVhat tho' my Name ſtood rubric on the vvalls? / Or plaiſter'd poſts, vvith Claps in capitals?

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

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

1. (transitive) To adorn with red; to redden.
   • 1681, Paul Rycaut, The Critick, translation of original by Lorenzo Gracián:

     That Cavalier who Rubricks his Executions with the Bloud he hath drawn by the instrument of Extortion from the Poor.

2. To organise or classify into rubrics

• “rubric”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “rubric”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.