These words refer to sets of rules, formulas or principles by which to evaluate the quality of something. Standard implies an objective, impartial rule or set of rules that have actually been worked out in advance: the army’s standards for physical fitness; research that does not meet our standard for accuracy.

Gauge and measure may both suggest an actual physical tool to determine the dimensions or attributes of a product: a gauge for determining the thickness of wire; an anemometer or other measure of wind velocity. Rather than the yes-or-no evaluation suggested by standard , these two words suggest an objective assessment of attributes. In more metaphorical uses, measure is the less formal of the two: agricultural production as a gauge of the economy’s effectiveness; an honour system that will be a measure of our students?honesty.

Test emphasizes the act of evaluation. The previous words suggest that means for evaluation and for assessment exist, without necessarily implying that they will be used. Test strongly implies an actual application of these means: combat as a test of the soldier’s bravery.

• The standards applied so rigorously in our shoe factory are nothing compared to the real test to which consumers put each pair of shoes in actual day-to-day use.

Criterion , the most formal of all these words, suggests the independent existence of standards that stress excellence. The implication is less strong that the discriminations suggested by criterion have been spelt out. The word, therefore, may suggest implicit taste as a more important part of the test than the mechanical application of an objective measure or gauge: candidates who feel that the sole criterion for office is the ability to win votes; Each individual is required to state the criteria on which his judgements are based.

Touchstone and yardstick are metaphorical in suggesting something against which any attempt may be contrasted. Yardstick, the most informal of any of these words, implies a standard of comparison based on common sense, easy to apply, and giving a cut-and fired answer: a low rate of unemployment as the least ambiguous yardstick of a country’s well-being. Touchstone gives an entirely different feeling from yardstick ; it suggests a set of imponderable values that cannot be measured absolutely so much as embodied in an earlier work against which the work in question is compared: Greek and Elizabethan tragedies that are the touchstones for all later theatrical effort. The word suggests a rarefied level of aesthetic discrimination based on tradition and precedence; it might even suggest preciosity: new artists who shattered the touchstones of Victorian sensibility.