standard as a noun

1. N-COUNT : with supp.

A standard is a level of quality or achievement, especially a level that is thought to be acceptable.

• The standard of professional cricket has never been lower.
• There will be new national standards for hospital cleanliness.

2. N-COUNT : with supp.

A standard is something that you use in order to judge the quality of something else.

• systems that were by later standards absurdly primitive.
  

3. N-PLURAL : usu with supp.

Standards are moral principles which affect people's attitudes and behaviour.

• My father has always had high moral standards.
  

(Uses as Adj. 4 and 5 are omitted....... Cobuild)

1. a level of quality: cuisine of a high standard

2. an accepted example of something against which others are judged or measured: the work was good by any standard

3. a moral principle of behaviour

(Uses as noun 4~6 and Adj uses are omitted...... Collins Essential)

※ standard seen through its synonyms

1. Synonyms: standard, benchmark, criterion, gauge, measure, touchstone, yardstick

    These nouns denote a point of reference against which individuals are compared and evaluated: 

• a book that is a standard of literary excellence; 
• a painting that is a benchmark of quality; 
• criteria for hiring an excellent teacher; 
• behavior that is a gauge of self-control; 
• donations from the public, a measure of the importance of the arts; 
• the program's success, a touchstone of cooperation in the community; 
• farm failures, a yardstick of federal banking policy.

2. Synonyms: ideal, example, exemplar, model, standard, pattern

    These nouns refer to someone or something worthy of imitation or duplication. 

• An ideal is a sometimes unattainable standard of perfection: "Religion is the vision of . . . something which is the ultimate ideal, and the hopeless quest" Alfred North Whitehead.
• An example can refer to something that is worthy of imitation but can also indicate something that serves as a deterrent or warning: "Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example" Louis D. Brandeis. 
• An exemplar, like a model, serves as an ideal example by reason of being either very worthy or truly representative of a type, admirable or otherwise: "He is indeed the perfect exemplar of all nobleness" Jane Porter. "Our fellow countryman is a model of a man" Charles Dickens. 
• A standard is an established criterion or recognized level of excellence: "It wouldn't be quite fair to test him by our standards" William Dean Howells.
• A pattern serves as a model, plan, or guide in the creation of something: "I will be the pattern of all patience" Shakespeare.

.... Am-Heritage