baseline

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: base=line

CIDE DICTIONARY

baseline, n. 

•  an imaginary line or standard by which things are measured or compared; as, they established a baseline for the budget.  [WordNet 1.5]
•  the back line at each end of a tennis court.  [WordNet 1.5]
•  the lines between bases on a baseball field along which a baseball player must run while running the bases.  [WordNet 1.5]
•  a measurement that represents the value of a physical quantity (such as a voltage, or a level of radioactivity) in the absence of effects from other variables in a measurement, test or experiment; a control value.  [PJC]
•  any horizontal line in a plot, graph, or diagram, or on a visual display in an electronic device, used as a reference point to which other values are referred.  [PJC]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

baseline, n.
1 a line used as a base or starting-point.
2 (in lawn tennis) the line marking each end of a court.