Word.ws English Dictionary

rubric

/ˈɹuːbɹɪk/

rubric noun: a heading in a book highlighted in red.

rubric: a heading in a book highlighted in red
Image: Stephen Langton (author); William Morris, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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.
    • 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.”2008, Chris Dodd, Senator Dodd Speaks in Opposition to FISA Bill on Floor of U.S. Senate
  3. The directions for a religious service, formerly printed in red letters.
    • All the clergy in England solemnly pledge themselves to observe the rubrics.1842, Walter Hook, Church Dictionary
  4. An established rule or custom; a guideline.
    • Whilst this rubric is not written into law, it should always be followed.
    • Nay, as a duty, it had no place or rubric in human conceptions before Christianity.1847-1848, Thomas De Quincey, "Protestantism", in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine
  5. A statement of intent.
    • The Government's rubric of "caring for communities" is ridiculous.
    • “It is diabolical for banks and asset managers to invest billions in major fossil fuel companies under the rubric of ‘green investing’ when we need to accelerate investments in non- and low-carbon energy, in carbon efficiency, and in carbon removal technologies,” said Richard Heede at the Climate...2025 May 18, Damian Carrington, Giorgio Michalopoulos, Stefano Valentino, “Revealed: European ‘green’ investments hold billions in fossil fuel majors”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian...
  6. A set of explanatory notes or rules at the beginning of an exam paper, usually typographically distinct from the rest of the paper.
    • Do not award marks to candidates who have made rubric errors.
    • In the first prospectus the rubric on this paper began 'Historical sources and materials and how the historian uses them[…]'1985, Asa Briggs, Serious Pursuits: Communications and Education (The Collected Essays of Asa Briggs), volume 3, Harvester Press, page 364
  7. A set of scoring criteria for evaluating student work and for giving feedback.
    • We refer to the rubric when marking oral examinations.
  8. A flourish after a signature.
    Synonyms:
    paraph
  9. Red ochre.

Adjective

rubric (comparative more rubric, superlative most rubric)

  1. Coloured or marked with red; placed in rubrics.
    • VVhat tho' my Name ſtood rubric on the vvalls? / Or plaiſter'd poſts, vvith Claps in capitals?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
  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.
    • That Cavalier who Rubricks his Executions with the Bloud he hath drawn by the instrument of Extortion from the Poor.1681, Paul Rycaut, The Critick, translation of original by Lorenzo Gracián
  2. (transitive) To organize or classify into rubrics.

rubric meaning in Tamil, Urdu and Indonesian

rubric in Tamil

செம்மையான, செவ்வுட்கருச்செம்மை சார்ந்த

rubric in Urdu

سرخی

rubric in Indonesian

heading in a book highlighted in red
rubrik
established rule or custom, a guideline
rubrik
printed set of scoring criteria
rubrik

Examples of rubric in a sentence

  • The rubric in Exhibit 3.2 provides criteria for exemplary, acceptable, and not yet acceptable work.
  • Formally, they are gathered under the rubric 'large group awareness training.' A few groups are relatively new.
  • In countless rubrics from the fifteenth century, scribes indicate their confusion with indulgences through their mistakes and expunctuations.

All 19 example sentences with rubric

Synonyms of rubric

Forms of rubric

Noun
pluralrubrics
alternative formrubrick
Adjective
comparativemore rubric
superlativemost rubric
Verb
third-person singular presentrubrics
present participlerubricking
past participlerubricked
pastrubricked

Plural of rubric: rubrics

Origin of rubric

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-.

Words formed from rubric

Questions about rubric

What does rubric mean?
Rubric means a heading in a book highlighted in red.
What is rubric in Tamil?
Rubric in Tamil is செம்மையான, செவ்வுட்கருச்செம்மை சார்ந்த. See Rubric meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is rubric?
Rubric can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
How do you pronounce rubric?
Rubric is pronounced /ˈɹuːbɹɪk/.
What is the plural of rubric?
The plural of rubric is rubrics.

Words near rubric in the dictionary

  1. rubrenolide
  2. rubrerythrin
  3. rubrerythrins
  4. rubriblast
  5. rubriblasts
  6. rubric
  7. rubrical
  8. rubricality
  9. rubrically
  10. rubrican
  11. rubricans

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rubric (page history and authors); rubric (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rubric (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-rubric.ogg, en-au-rubric.ogg.

Cite this entry: “rubric.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rubric. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.