yardstick

[yahrd-stik]

yard·stick

[yahrd-stik]
noun
1.
a stick a yard long, commonly marked with subdivisions, used for measuring.
2.
any standard of measurement or judgment: Test scores are not the only yardstick of academic achievement.

Origin:
1810–20, Americanism; yard1 + stick1
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Yardstick is always a great word to know.
So is interrobang. Does it mean:
a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
Collins
World English Dictionary
yardstick (ˈjɑːdˌstɪk)
 
n
1.  a measure or standard used for comparison: on what kind of yardstick is he basing his criticism?
2.  a graduated stick, one yard long, used for measurement

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
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