Canons caught ceremony at academy (8)
I believe the answer is:
criteria
'canons' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'caught ceremony at academy' is the wordplay.
'caught' becomes 'c' (cricket abbreviation).
'ceremony' becomes 'rite' (rite is a kind of ceremony).
'at academy' becomes 'ria' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'c'+'rite'+'ria'='CRITERIA'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for criteria that I've seen before include "set of rules" , "Benchmarks" , "Principles for judging" , "Standards by which things measured" , "Standards on which to base judgment" .)