gold standard

American  

noun

1. a monetary system with gold of specified weight and fineness as the unit of value.

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gold standard British  

noun

1. a monetary system in which the unit of currency is defined with reference to gold

2. the supreme example of something against which others are judged or measured

   the current gold standard for breast cancer detection

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gold standard Cultural  

1. A system in which a nation's currency has a value measured in gold and can be exchanged for gold. Most nations, including the United States, went off the gold standard in the 1930s.

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Etymology

Origin of gold standard

An Americanism dating back to 1825–35

Example Sentences

Lawyers for CPL, an independent production company which makes the UK version of the show, said its welfare system was "gold standard" and industry-leading, and that it had acted appropriately in all these cases.

From BBC • May 19, 2026

New York pizza may be the gold standard for connoisseurs, but Iowan pizza packs a profit punch.

From Barron's • May 14, 2026

The index aims to measure the availability of Nvidia GPUs — still the gold standard for training AI models — through a number of major cloud providers.

From MarketWatch • May 12, 2026

But “surgery is still the gold standard for those who are under 65,” Grubb said.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 24, 2026

And dollar bills that were backed by the gold standard, which were no longer in circulation, had been found mixed in.

From Nazi Saboteurs by Samantha Seiple