state of the art

Alternative forms

• state-of-the-art

Adjective

state of the art (comparative more state of the art, superlative most state of the art)

1. At the highest level of development at a particular time; cutting-edge.
   • 2006, Patrick Blackburn · Johan Bos · Kristina Striegnitz, Learn Prolog Now!, §8.3

     How good are DCGs from a linguistic perspective? Well, mixed. At one stage (in the early 1980s) they were pretty much state of the art. They made it possible to code complex grammars in a clear way, and to explore the interplay of syntactic and semantic ideas. Certainly any history of parsing in computational linguistics would give DCGs an honourable mention.

   state-of-the-art technology

Noun

state of the art (uncountable)

1. The condition of scientific or technical knowledge, particularly the peak or highest level thereof, at a particular time.
   • 2002, D. G. Carmichael, Disputes and International Projects, page 164:

     which is not only not advancing the state-of-the-art of management but also is believed to be regressing the state-of-the-art.