litmus test
English edit
Etymology edit
Noun edit
litmus test (plural litmus tests)
- (chemistry) A simple test for the acidity or alkalinity of a substance, using litmus paper.
- (figuratively, by extension) Any test which produces a decisive result (for example, determining whether to appoint someone to a job) by measuring a single indicator.
- Coordinate term: acid test
- 1940 October 2, Allison Danzig, “Leading Elevens Face Stern Threats in Saturday's Games”, in New York Times, page 27:
- Temple, under its new coach, Ray Morrison, formerly of Vanderbilt, will be put to the blue litmus test Friday night when it takes on Georgetown.
- 1998 February 16, “Baby-Boomer Bonding”, in Newsweek:
- For good reasons or bad, early membership of the currency union has become the litmus test of being a "good European."
- 2004 November 15, Matthew Cooper, “Candidates In the Wings”, in Time[1], archived from the original on 2013-02-20:
- He opposes a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage—a litmus test for many social conservatives
- 2018 March 1, Steven Kurutz, quoting Lisa Schwarzbaum, “How Do You Solve a Problem Like ‘Manhattan’?”, in The New York Times[2], →ISSN:
- For years, quoting lines from “Manhattan” or another film by Mr. Allen on a date could be a romantic litmus test, a way to find out if a potential partner also loved E. E. Cummings, Paris, 1930s jazz and the sophisticated, cultured world the films often came to represent.
- 2024 January 24, Dyan Perry talks to Nick Brodrick, “The industry has given me so much”, in RAIL, number 1001, page 44:
- " […] I don't know National Rail numbers, but I do know that after the pandemic I used to go round a lot of the London stations, and they had far more locations shut than I did at St Pancras. That was very much my litmus test."
Translations edit
chemistry
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figurative senses
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References edit
- “litmus test”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
- Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary, 1987–1996.