benchmarking

American  

[bench-mahr-king] / ˈbɛntʃˌmɑr kɪŋ /

noun

1. the act or practice of measuring something against a standard, or of testing it in order to develop such a standard.

   The system measures nursing outcomes on a numerical scale, facilitating the benchmarking of nursing practices across facilities and jurisdictions.

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Etymology

Origin of benchmarking

First recorded in 1965–70; benchmark ( def. ) + -ing ¹ ( def. )

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

benchmarking

The methods they produced—careful, adversarial, institutionally embedded, historically tested—are, for that very reason, more directly relevant to our current predicament than any amount of algorithmic benchmarking.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026

Preliminary discussions value DeepSeek at between $10 billion and $30 billion, benchmarking it against Moonshot AI.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 23, 2026

The analysts are expecting a “slow normalization” based on benchmarking today’s energy shock against every major one that’s taken place in the Middle East since the closure of the Suez Canal in 1956.

From MarketWatch ● Apr. 20, 2026

Uefa's latest benchmarking report says that Chelsea made a pre-tax loss of £355m for 2024-25.

From BBC ● Mar. 4, 2026

This year’s benchmarking process reduced total job growth in 2025 to 181,000 from a previously reported 584,000.

From Barron's ● Feb. 19, 2026