All definitions of identity, national, social, ethnic or personal, use a comparative yardstick, be it explicit or implicit.
en.wikipedia.org Perceived as a tough, mobile, and independent outdoorsman, he has become a symbolic yardstick against which modern men might measure their own manhood.
en.wikipedia.org It is a reasonably busy rural market town, which has by way of yardstick the district hospital and maternity home, and the main banks.
en.wikipedia.org And in applying the mass-production yardstick to both the mechanics and creative side of film-making, the latter became molded into a pattern.
en.wikipedia.org Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one.
en.wikipedia.org