benchmark
nounEtymology
From bench + mark. First use appears c. 1842. Originally a mark cut into a stone by land surveyors to secure a bench (from land surveying jargon in the 19th century, meaning a type of bracket), to mount measuring equipment. The figurative sense first appears c. 1884.
Definitions
A standard by which something is evaluated or measured.
- Near-synonym: criterion
- Is the pope Catholic? Forgive the posing of a question that is usually rhetorical, the absolute benchmark of certainty, and traditionally regarded as even more settled than the one pertaining to the lavatorial arrangements of bears.
A surveyor's mark made on some stationary object and shown on a map
A surveyor's mark made on some stationary object and shown on a map; used as a reference point.
- Near-synonym: datum
A computer program that is executed to assess the performance of the runtime environment.
›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer
To measure the performance or quality of (an item) relative to another similar item in an…
To measure the performance or quality of (an item) relative to another similar item in an impartial scientific manner.
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
A definitional loop anchored at benchmark. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.
A definitional loop anchored at benchmark. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.
9 hops · closes at benchmark
curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA