touchstone

IPA: tˈʌtʃstoʊn

A stone used to check the quality of gold alloys by rubbing them to leave a visible trace.
(figurative, by extension) A standard of comparison or evaluation.
A surname.

Examples of "touchstone" in Sentences

Its touchstone is the autonomous individual celebrated by John Locke in
Like Lincoln's, its touchstone is the common good of the nation, not the sovereign self.
Harry and Sally bicker over Casablanca; for the women of Sleepless in Seattle, the emotional touchstone is An Affair to Remember (“Men never get this movie!”).
The touchstone is this Rolling Stone postmortem of the battle over Caliornia’s Proposition 8, which concludes that the anti-gay amendment could have been defeated, but for a signally inept campaign waged by its opponents.
Situated alongside the River Thames, the iconic power plant has been featured in works by The Who, Pink Floyd and The Beatles, and now this cultural touchstone is being retrofitted into a self-sufficent community powered by a zero-carbon energy plant.