ˈbench-mark
a. A surveyor's mark cut in some durable material, as a rock, wall, gate-pillar, face of a building, etc., to indicate the starting, closing, or any suitable intermediate, point in a line of levels for the determination of altitudes over the face of a country. It consists of a series of wedge-shaped incisures, in the form of the ‘broad-arrow’ with a horizontal bar through its apex, thus {benchm}. When the spot is below sea-level, as in mining surveys, the mark is inverted.
[The horizontal bar is the essential part, the broad arrow being added (originally by the Ordnance Survey) as an identification. In taking a reading, an angle-iron {angle} is held with its upper extremity inserted in the horizontal bar, so as to form a temporary bracket or bench for the support of the levelling-staff, which can thus be placed on absolutely the same base on any subsequent occasion. Hence the name.]
| 1842 Francis Dict. Arts, Bench marks, in surveying, fixed points left on a line of survey for reference at a future time, consisting of cuts in trees, pegs driven into the ground, etc. 1883 G. J. Symons Brit. Rainf. 134 A series of levels has been taken from the gauge to an Ordnance bench mark. |
b. transf. and fig. A point of reference; a criterion, touchstone.
| 1884 Science IV. 202/1 These star-places..are the reference-points and bench-marks of the universe. 1957 R. K. Merton Student-Physician iii. 195 Standards represent ‘benchmarks’ with which students compare their ability and performance. 1963 Economist 18 May 663/2 Foreign firms have failed to get..orders unless they have offered a price advantage of at least 50 per cent. This is the ‘bench⁓mark’. |
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▸ Computing. A program or set of programs used as a standard against which the performance of other programs (or the computer systems running them) is compared or evaluated. Freq. attrib.
| 1962 Automatic Data Processing Gloss. (U.S. Bureau of Budget) 40/2 Benchmark problem, a routine used to determine the speed performance of a computer. 1981 ABA Banking Jrnl. Dec. 110/3 The benchmark test can provide valuable insight into various features and nuances of the system. 1988 Communications Assoc. Computing Machinery 31 1203/2 If a set of benchmarks is chosen well, each program in the real job mix has the same performance characteristics as one or more of the benchmark programs. 1994 New Media Aug. 102/1 The CD-Blitz works with popular CD-ROM drives... Three benchmark utilities are also provided. 2000 Network World (Nexis) 31 Jan. 36 NLANR's Web Polygraph tool is a widely accepted benchmark for testing cache products. |