the gold standard

noun

1

: a system in which a unit of money (such as the dollar) is equal to a particular amount of gold

The United States was still on the gold standard in the early 20th century.

2

: something that is considered to be the best and that is used to judge the quality or level of other, similar things

This car is the gold standard for luxury automobiles.

the gold standard of stylish resorts

Examples of the gold standard in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Cotton is the gold standard for a luxurious feel—each item in our edit is either pure cotton or a soft blend—and from there, the rest is pretty much down to style preference. —Elly Leavitt, Vogue, 9 Jan. 2026

Still, Nvidia’s AI accelerators are considered the gold standard for the AI industry, and some of the company’s older products are still more powerful than Huawei’s latest offerings — especially on a chip-by-chip basis. —Bloomberg, Mercury News, 8 Jan. 2026

The Cronkite reference is to, of course, the late Walter Cronkite, the former CBS anchor generally considered the gold standard of fairness in journalism (and for whom the journalism school at Arizona State University is named). —Bill Goodykoontz, AZCentral.com, 6 Jan. 2026

All of which led Tarasova to dismiss comparisons of Malinin by the Russian media to Olympic champions Alexei Yagudin (2002) and Evgeni Plushenko (2006), considered the gold standard for male skaters in the pre-Chen era. —Scott M. Reid, Oc Register, 6 Jan. 2026

Rhymes for the gold standard

• meandered
• nonstandard
• substandard
• slandered