yardstick

By any normal yardstick, the Le Mans 24 Hours is one of the most difficult and demanding races in motorsport.

But what is a manifesto of a victorious party for, if not a yardstick of a government's progress?

The tests are widely considered the best available yardstick for measuring academic achievement across state lines, because testing programs adopted by each state can vary considerably.

Down the status and stature yardstick are the shorter, stockier Mediterranean fan palm as well as the jelly palm, whose fruit lives up to the name.

And Demi Moore became an Oscars frontrunner when she told women to “put down the yardstick” in her Golden Globes acceptance speech for "The Substance."