gold standard

1. 1.

   a monetary standard under which the basic unit of currency is defined by a stated quantity of gold

   Broaderstandard
2. 2.

   a paragon of excellence

   “academic education is the gold standard against which other educational activity is pejoratively judged”

   Broaderparagon

Questions about gold standard

What does gold standard mean?

gold standard means "a monetary standard under which the basic unit of currency is defined by a stated quantity of gold". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

Is gold standard a common word?

gold standard is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.