Meaning

A limit that when surpassed cannot be returned from, or an action that when taken cannot be reversed..

Definitions by Sense

1. A limit that when surpassed cannot be returned from, or an action that when taken cannot be reversed.
2. (card games) Especially in bezique and piquet: a score which, if not achieved by a losing player, increases the player's penalty.
3. (transitive, card games) Especially in bezique and piquet: to defeat a player who has not achieved the rubicon.

Example Sentences

Fortunately for England ſhe is yet on the peaceable ſide of the Rubicon; but as the flames once kindled are not alway eaſily extinguiſhed, the hopes of peace are not ſo clear as before the late myſterious diſpute began.

So when friends are lied into distrust of each other, and the rubicon has been passed, either by the death of one, or that the light of truth will not break in upon the mist resting upon the other, [...] at a day too late a discovery arises, and the perpetrators of this fruitless crime, console themselves with the saying that it was "all for the sufferer's good.["]

But, my hearers, there are Rubicons to be passed in our religious and moral course, as well as in our temporal—occasions in the experience of our hearts, which extend their influence so far into the future, that it mainly depends on the decision we then make, and the purposes we then form, whether we shall at last be saved or lost for ever.

Forgive me, ghosts of patriots,— [...] / [...] —for being taught in vain / That while the illegitimate Cæsars show / Of meaner stature than the first full strain, / (Confessed incompetent to conquer Gaul) / They swoon as feebly and cross Rubicons / As rashly as any Julius of them all.

We are always passing the Rubicon, or being called upon to see somebody else pass it. Considering how often it has been passed, the Rubicon ought to be as well bridged as the Thames. [...] Looking back a few years, we find that that heaven-born minister, Pitt [i.e., William Pitt the Younger], crossed the Rubicon time after time; and while he was crossing it, [Napoleon] Buonaparte was constantly crossing it also. Later, our Wellington crossed the Rubicon when he marched against the French in the Peninsula.

When one is snugly ensconced under several thicknesses of eiderdown, with the frozen water-bottle sending a cracked and mocking leer from the window sill, getting up is the one thing really irrevocable. It becomes the most final of Rubicons, the most suicidal of bridge-burnings, a leap into an abyss of vaguely dreadful activities,—a fantastic world where people stand on their feet and tie neckties.

Like [Julius] Caesar, individuals often have little trouble pointing to the rubicons in their own lives. Nor do historians have a hard time determining when the fate of charismatic leaders is sealed. The task of discerning where institutions cross their rubicons, however, is far more difficult, for institutional movements resemble the movement of an amoeba far more than they resemble that of a man.

The maintenance of a live cell, the control of its behaviour, its development, its reproduction, and its eventual death, are determined by a series of physical and chemical thresholds, or ‘rubicons’. Only when a specific series of rubicons is crossed at the right time, in the correct order, and at the right location within the cell, will a particular cellular event occur. Similarly the behaviour of an organelle is also determined by the ‘rubicons’ it has crossed.

Word Forms

• rubicons
• Rubicon
• rubiconing
• rubiconed

Synonyms for rubicon

Related Words

When Should You Use Rubicon?

Use rubicon when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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