Other forms: standards
Standard means usual and accepted as normal. Standard practice, a standard size, standard model.
As a noun it is a level to be met or a flag — and both senses come from the same place: a standard was the flag an army rallied to, and from a fixed point to a fixed measure is a short step. Standards bodies publish the agreed specifications everything is built against. Note substandard.
1adjectivestandardUsual and accepted as normal.
“This is the standard size for a passport photo.”
2nounlevelA level to be met.
“The teacher said my essay wasn't up to my usual standard.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Old French estandart named a battle flag, probably from Frankish words meaning stand firm. The sense of a fixed measure followed the fixed point.
Middle English
standard
English, today
standard
Built from
From Middle English standard. From Middle English standard, from Old French estandart (“gathering place, battle flag”), from Frankish standahard literally “stand firm, stand hard”, equivalent to stand + ard. An alternative etymology derives the second element from Frankish oʀd (“point, spot, place”) (compare Old French ordé (“pointed”), Old English ord (“point, source, vanguard”), German Standort (“location, place, site, position, base”) literally “standing-point”). Merged with Middle English standar, stander, standere (“flag, banner”) literally “stander”, equivalent to stand + -er. More at stand, hard, ord. As a hill-naming term possibly a xcb -; equivalent to Welsh lluman (“standard”), arising with confusion with the hill-naming element llumon (“chimney”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA