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Guideline vs Textbook - What's the difference?

guideline | textbook |

As nouns the difference between guideline and textbook

is that guideline is a non-specific rule or principle that provides direction to action or behaviour while textbook is a coursebook, a formal manual of instruction in a specific subject, especially one for use in schools or colleges.

As an adjective textbook is

of or pertaining to textbooks or their style, especially in being dry and pedagogical; textbooky, textbooklike.

guideline

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A non-specific rule or principle that provides direction to action or behaviour.
    • He considered the Ten Commandments more a guideline than a requirement.
  • A plan or explanation to guide one in setting standards or determining a course of action.
  • A light line, used in lettering, to help align the text.

    • Synonyms

    * (non-specific rule) rule of thumb * (plan or explanation) rule of thumb

    textbook

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A coursebook, a formal manual of instruction in a specific subject, especially one for use in schools or colleges.

    • Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Of or pertaining to textbooks or their style, especially in being dry and pedagogical; textbooky, textbooklike.
  • * 1917 , George Ransom Twiss, A textbook in the principles of science teaching?
    • It is likely to kill interest, and give both teacher and pupils a didactic, textbook attitude at the very beginning.
  • * 2000 , Okasha El Daly, Janet Starkey, Desert travellers: from Herodotus to T.E. Lawrence?
    • They are mentioned in his flat, textbook voice, alongside schoolroom descriptions of topography and assessments of economic significance.
  • * 2004 , David Henn, Old Spain and new Spain: the travel narratives of Camilo José Cela?
    • ...a kind of descriptive account or a social, geographical, anthropological, or historical commentary that may at times have a certain textbook tone to it.
  • Having the typical characteristics of some class of phenomenon, so that it might be included as an example in a textbook.
  • * 1997 , Alexander De Waal, Famine crimes: politics and the disaster relief industry in Africa?
    • It was a textbook case of how prompt government action could avert a major crisis.
  • * 2003 , Felice Picano, A house on the ocean, a house on the bay?
    • Every night had been clear and star-studded, the progression of the moon through its phases absolutely textbook , its dance with the planets visible in the ecliptic...
  • * 2003 , Robert J Art, Patrick M Cronin, The United States and coercive diplomacy?
    • In many ways the Korean nuclear crisis is a textbook example of coercive diplomacy — its strengths as well as the risks inherent in such a strategy.

    Quotations

    * (English Citations of "textbook")