grading

/ˈgreɪdɪŋ/

/ˈgreɪdɪŋ/

Other forms: gradings

When your teacher stays up until four in the morning assigning scores to student work, that's the grading of papers. Grading can also mean smoothing a surface, as in grading a lawn before planting seeds.

Grading comes from the verb grade, which basically means "group by category." When a teacher works on the grading of papers, she's dividing them into groups — the A's go together, the B's and so on. Fruit grading works in the same way, as does meat — you can have meat where the grading is "prime," or meat with a grading of "Grade A." Grading also has to do with the idea of gradual change — a steep slope could be said to have steep grading.

Definitions of grading

1. noun

   evaluation of performance by assigning a grade or score
   “what he disliked about teaching was all the grading he had to do”

   synonyms: marking, scoring

   type of:

   evaluation, rating

   act of ascertaining or fixing the value or worth of
2. noun

   changing the ground level to a smooth horizontal or gently sloping surface
   synonyms: leveling

   type of:

   building, construction

   the act of constructing something
3. noun

   the act of arranging in a graduated series
   synonyms: scaling

   type of:

   order, ordering

   the act of putting things in a sequential arrangement