gold standard

American  

noun

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

---

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

---

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.

---

Etymology

Origin of gold standard

An Americanism dating back to 1825–35

Example Sentences

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

The New York bagel has been widely accepted as the gold standard of the classic breakfast food, and New Yorkers proudly believe that the best bagels come from their own backyard.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 9, 2026

"She's actually currently really comfortable, so we are using this as the gold standard re-check to be able to ensure we are not missing anything else going on there."

From BBC • Apr. 21, 2026

Within minutes, Miele was on a table in the cardiac catheterization laboratory, awaiting angioplasty to unclog his artery—a procedure that many cardiologists say has become the gold standard in heart attack treatment.

From "Class Matters" by The New York Times