rubric

American  

[roo-brik] / ˈru brɪk /

noun

• rubrics
  plural

1. a title, heading, direction, or the like, in a manuscript, book, statute, etc., written or printed in red or otherwise distinguished from the rest of the text.

2. a direction for the conduct of divine service or the administration of the sacraments, inserted in liturgical books.

3. any established mode of conduct or procedure; protocol.

4. an explanatory comment; gloss.

5. a class or category

6. Archaic. red ocher.

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adjective

1. written, inscribed in, or marked with or as with red; rubrical.

2. Archaic. red; ruddy.

rubric British  

/ ˈruːbrɪk /

noun

1. a title, heading, or initial letter in a book, manuscript, or section of a legal code, esp one printed or painted in red ink or in some similarly distinguishing manner

2. a set of rules of conduct or procedure

3. a set of directions for the conduct of Christian church services, often printed in red in a prayer book or missal

4. instructions to a candidate at the head of the examination paper

5. an obsolete name for red ochre

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adjective

1. written, printed, or marked in red

Usage

What does rubric mean? Rubric commonly refers to a set of guidelines or a protocol for how something will or should be done, like how an assignment will be graded. Rubric is also commonly used to mean a class or category. Its original meaning, which is still used, refers to text printed in red or set apart in some other way, such as a heading in a manuscript. Less commonly, rubric can be used as an adjective meaning written or marked in red. Example: Please check the rubric when writing your papers so you know exactly what I’m looking for.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• rubrical
  adjective
• rubrically
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• rubrics
  plural

Etymology

Origin of rubric

1325–75; < Latin rūbrīca red ocher (derivative of ruber red ¹ ); replacing Middle English rubriche, rubrike (noun) < Old French

Explanation

A rubric is a heading or a category in a chart, or a rule of conduct. A teacher's grading rubrics may include participation, homework completion, tests, quizzes, and papers. A rubric can also mean a rule or a procedure. If you use "might makes right" as the rubric for the formation of a list of classroom rules, you'll have a different-feeling classroom culture than if your rubric is "everyone deserves respect."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

rubric rubrics

Situations that get bundled together under this rubric include airlines cutting flights, Asian governments requiring home-working to save fuel, rising EV sales and high energy costs sapping overall economic activity.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026

On Substack recently, Nicholas Thompson, the CEO of the Atlantic, shared a writer’s account of using Claude to build a custom editing rubric while instructing the A.I.,

From Slate ● Apr. 17, 2026

“It’s about transparency. It’s objectivity. It’s being able to identify the conflicts of interest, mitigate or eliminate the ones that are substantial, and then disclose—because our federal securities rubric is a disclosure-based regime,” Dahiya says.

From Barron's ● Jan. 30, 2026

“If I did this for your client, I’ll have to do it for every single defendant who was indicted when Mr. Essayli was acting under the rubric of acting U.S. attorney, correct?”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 14, 2025

The generic rubric ‘theists’ covers Jewish rabbis from eighteenth-century Poland, witch-burning Puritans from seventeenth-century Massachusetts, Aztec priests from fifteenth-century Mexico, Sufi mystics from twelfth-century Iran, tenth-century Viking warriors, second-century Roman legionnaires, and first-century Chinese bureaucrats.

From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari

I have also seen the effect of replacing state test scores, grades and attendance as admission rubrics for middle school and high school with lottery numbers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026

Balta added that the rubrics on Harper’s site only pertain to the way current UW and transfer students are evaluated — not incoming freshmen, who in some cases can apply directly to their major.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 27, 2023

The team also drew upon Berkeley Lab's expertise and instrumentation to fully characterize their microbial factories by many different rubrics.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 19, 2023

In addition, rubrics may be based on conventions already discussed in class or a previous reading.

From Textbooks ● Dec. 21, 2021

She puts down the stack of rubrics she’s holding.

From "The Benefits of Being an Octopus" by Ann Braden