Other forms: rubrics
A rubric is a heading, or the set of instructions at the top of a task. Under the rubric of, read the rubric, exam rubric.
In education it also means the scheme by which work is marked, which is the American use spreading. The word once meant the red letters that marked a heading in a manuscript, and the red is the reason for the name.
1nounrubricA heading or set of instructions for a task.
“Half the candidates lost marks by ignoring the rubric.”
rubric is a heading.
Latin rubrica means red ochre, from ruber, red; headings in old manuscripts were written in red.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₁rewdʰ-
Latin
rūbrīca — red ochre
Old French
rubrique
Middle English
rubriche
English, today
rubric
Built from
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-.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA