The word standard has several meanings:

Classically, standard referred to a flag or banner; especially, a national or other ensign carried into battle; thus "standard bearer" indicates the one who bears, or carries, the standard.

The modern primary meaning evolved through symbolism: "a quality or measure which is established by authority, custom, or general consent". In the phrase "light standard" it retains the older meaning of a vertical support.

In technical use, a standard is a concrete example of an item or a specification against which all others may be measured. For example, there are "primary standards" for length, mass (see Kilogram standard), and other units of measure, kept by laboratories and standards organizations. Officially certified measuring instruments must be checked for accuracy using such standards (or secondary standards made from the primary).

In analytical chemistry a standard is a preparation containing a known concentration of a specified substance. A simple standard may be a dilute solution of the substance; this serves as a reference to calibrate equipment used to measure a sample's composition in terms of compounds or elements. For accuracy, real samples are bracketed by known standards, that is, standards are analyzed that contain concentrations of the analyte that are less than and greater than the real sample's concentration.

There are also certified reference materials available which contain independently verified concentrations of elements available in different matrices (a matrix is bulk material of the sample, for example blood).

Some of the succesors to the Standard Oil Trust formerly used Standard as a brand name. These included Amoco in the Midwest before their merger with BP, Chevron, Exxon, and Sohio.

The Standard type battleship was a series of US Navy battleships with relatively homogenous handling characteristics including a 21 knot flank speed and a 700 yard tactical diameter at flank speed. There were five classes in the Standard program, plus a sixth which was canceled: Nevada class, Pennsylvania class, New Mexico class, Tennessee class (called in contemporary European publications the California class, as USS California (BB-44) was commissioned first) and Colorado class (called in contemporary European publications the Maryland class for the same reasons as above). The class which was canceled and broken up was the BB-49 South Dakota class.

In linguistics, a standard can refer to either a written standard, an endorsed "proper" way of spelling words or even of constructing sentences, or to a spoken standard or pronunciation standard: an endorsed way of pronouncing the words of a language. In English, which has no legal or international standards, for instance, "The Queen's English" is widely regarded (especially outside the United States) as the "proper" pronuciation. Unofficial spelling standards for English also exist in various countries, especially where the language is dominant. For example, the "American standard" spelling for "harbor" and "legalization" is at odds with the "standard" spellings of most other Anglophone countries, where these words are spelled "harbour" and "legalisation". For other languages, such as French or Spanish, there exist centralized authorities which determine the "proper" pronunciation and spelling of each and every word in the "standard" language (see List of language regulators).

See also

• Ideal standard
• International standard
• Jazz standard in music
• Open standard or its antonym, proprietary (e.g., proprietary software)
• Standardisation
• Standards organizations
• Building code
• Standard transmission
• Heraldic standard