Standards

STANDARD, noun [G., sort, kind.]

1. An ensign of war; a staff with a flag or colors. The troops repair to their standard The royal standard of Great Britain is a flag, in which the imperial ensigns of England, Scotland and Ireland are quartered with the armorial bearings of Hanover.

His armies, in the following day, on those fair plains their standards proud display.

2. That which is established by sovereign power as a rule or measure by which others are to be adjusted. Thus the Winchester bushel is the standard of measures in Great Britain, and is adopted in the United States as their standard So of weights and of long measure.

3. That which is established as a rule or model, by the authority of public opinion, or by respectable opinions, or by custom or general consent; as writings which are admitted to be the standard of style and taste. Homers Iliad is the standard of heroic poetry. Demosthenes and Cicero are the standards of oratory. Of modern eloquence, we have an excellent standard in the speeches of lord Chatham. Addisons writings furnish a good standard of pure, chaste and elegant English stayle. It is not an easy thing to erect a standard of taste.

4. In coinage, the proportion of weight of fine metal and alloy established by authority. The coins of England and of the United States are of nearly the same standard

By the present standard of the coinage, sixty two shillings is coined out of one pound weight of silver.

5. A standing tree or stem; a tree not supported or attached to a wall.

Plant fruit of all sorts and standard mural, or shrubs which lose their leaf.

6. In ship-building, an inverted knee placed upon the deck instead of beneath it, with its vertical branch turned upward from that which lies horizontally.

7. In botany, the upper petal or banner of a papilionaceous corol.