guideline

Pluralguidelines

Formsguidelines, guidelining, guidelined

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A broad principle meant to steer how people act or behave, without laying down exact requirements.

   Like a compass bearing rather than a marked trail: it points you in a direction without dictating each step.

   The committee published a guideline encouraging staff to recycle whenever possible.

   Volunteers followed loose guidelines rather than rigid rules.

   Similarprinciple, recommendation, rule

   Note

   Where a rule binds, a guideline steers. Treating the Ten Commandments "more as a guideline than a requirement" shows the point: the word marks direction that may be weighed and even set aside. In official use it usually appears in the plural, as a document an office issues, such as the OMS guidelines on interrogation that the Obama Administration released in 2009.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A plan or explanation that helps someone set standards or decide on a course of action.

   Like a blueprint that shows the overall plan without fixing every measurement in stone.

   The new guideline lays out how to evaluate each application fairly.

   Engineers consulted the guidelines before approving the bridge design.

   Similarstandard, framework, protocol, criterion

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A light line used in lettering to help keep the text aligned.

   The calligrapher ruled a faint guideline across the page before starting.

   Once the ink dried, she erased the guidelines beneath the lettering.

   Note

   The literal sense, and the one the compound spells out most plainly: a line that guides. A letterer rules it faintly to fix the baseline, the height of the letters and their slope, then erases it once the ink is dry, so it never shows in the finished work. The rule-of-conduct meaning keeps the same picture: something that keeps you straight without becoming part of the result.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To provide guidelines for an activity, process, or area of conduct.

   The agency moved to guideline emerging uses of the technology.

   Industry bodies guideline how their members handle customer data.

   Similarregulate, govern

   Note

   Professional jargon that turns the noun directly into a verb, with regular forms: guidelines, guidelining, guidelined. Steven Heller and Veronique Vienne's Becoming a Graphic and Digital Designer (2015) sets "guidelining the work" against implementing it. Guidelining means laying down the rules, and implementing means carrying them out. In more general writing, "set guidelines for" or "issue guidelines on" says the same thing in more familiar words.

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