Benchmarks

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Established standards used to measure the quality or performance of something ; points of reference against which other things are compared or evaluated
2. Criteria or norms applied to assess or judge effectiveness or efficiency ; fixed points used to compare other data or results
3. Recognized levels of excellence used to evaluate results or progress ; specific indicators serving as comparison markers for evaluating other entities

Etymology: The word began as a literal mark in stone. In 19th-century land surveying, a "bench" was a bracket or ledge cut into a stone or fixed structure to hold measuring equipment steady, and the mark cut beside it recorded a known elevation that surveyors could return to later. The term appears in print around 1842, the sense of a fixed reference point it was built on. The figurative sense followed about four decades later, around 1884, when people began using the term for any fixed standard against which other things could be measured. That is the direction the modern meaning grew from: a surveyor's reference point became a yardstick for judging performance, whether of software, schools, or economies.

Synonyms: standards, criteria, measures, yardsticks, norms