best practice

American  

noun

Chiefly Business.

1. Often best practices a procedure or set of procedures that is preferred or considered standard within an organization, industry, etc..

   The company adopted best practice in employee recruitment.

   At the meeting we reviewed best practices for communicating with clients.

   Their methodology was identified as a best practice.

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best practice British  

noun

1. the recognized methods of correctly running businesses or providing services

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Etymology

Origin of best practice

First recorded in 1980–85; derived from an earlier (1905) sense “the best method, procedure, etc.”

Example Sentences

That’s not because the travel industry has a hard-and-fast rule about when to buy flights, but because the loosely understood best practice of a one-to-three-month advance window for nonholiday travel hasn’t arrived yet.

From Slate • May 12, 2026

Overall, the evaluations of the AI tools will cover "testing, collaborative research and best practice development related to commercial AI systems."

From BBC • May 5, 2026

As well as sharing profits, domestic firms benefited from their overseas partners' shared technology and best practice.

From Barron's • Apr. 27, 2026

“We didn’t have examples of what best practice was,” said Amelia Vance, the president of the Public Interest Privacy Center, a nonprofit organization.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 22, 2026

The best practice for transposing is to transpose a piece you know well into a new key.

From "Understanding Basic Music Theory" by Catherine Schmidt-Jones and Russel Jones