(noun) the current known, accepted and generally practiced (as in "done") way of doing something in an industry or craft.
Examples:
- A "best practice" of accounting might be the double ledger system.
- In high jumping, the best practice is called the "Fosbury Flop".
- In combatting AIDS, I think it's called "combination therapy".
- Last I heard, in building CMOS chips, it was "Silicon On Sapphire", aka "SOS". But this changes daily or so.
- For measuring distance very accurately, I think it's laser interferometry.
- For sorting arrays in a program, it's (usually) an algorithm called Quicksort.
- In the Linux world, best practices are often captured in HOWTOs.
- If you're building an empire, it might be Divide and Conquer
(which happens to be the basis for QuickSort as well).
- In guerrilla warfare, it might be hit and run.
- For spanking, it's called OTK.
I'm not an expert on any of these things, so if I'm way out of date or way wrong, please don't jump on me. I just wanted to give you an idea.