yardstick
[
yahrd
-stik]
/ˈyɑrdˌstɪk/
noun
1.
a
stick
a
yard
long, commonly marked with subdivisions, used for measuring.
2.
any standard of measurement or judgment:
Test scores are not the only yardstick of academic achievement.
Origin
1810-20,
Americanism;
yard
1
+
stick
1
Examples from the web for
yardstick
However, the
yardstick
does not have to be academic courses only.
Take out a
yardstick
and measure the distances between different students' hands and heads.
No other
yardstick
is mentioned, not society, not evolution.
What has been missing in the science of smell, they argue, is a meaningful way to measure it-an olfactory
yardstick
.
In essence, corporations get to choose the
yardstick
by which they measure the profits that they publish.
Most currencies are trading a long way from that
yardstick
.
For example, market share was the main goal and
yardstick
of such structures.
By that
yardstick
house prices seem low in only a handful of countries in our survey, as the final column in the table shows.
The difficulty is partly that there is no single
yardstick
for measuring progress in those areas.
By that
yardstick
too, the world is quickly becoming older.
British Dictionary definitions for
yardstick
yardstick
/
ˈjɑːdˌstɪk
/
noun
1.
a measure or standard used for comparison:
on what kind of yardstick is he basing his criticism?
2.
a graduated stick, one yard long, used for measurement
Word Origin and History for
yardstick
n.
1816, from
yard
(n.2) +
stick
(n.).