I see this all the time, mostly when references are made about the dollar and how it was once backed by gold
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If a curency is backed by gold, then the government that issues the currency has a giant vault or warehouse somewhere full of gold. All the money they issue is worth x amount of gold. For example, the British pound sterling was originally worth exactly one pound of sterling silver. With gold standard currencies you can hypothetically take your currency to the government and exchange it for physical gold bars. Because the currency just represents what the government has in their vault.
The weakness of the gold standard is that the government can only issue as much currency as they have gold. If they want to issue more, they have to obtain more gold somehow and stuff it in their vault. This is bad for the economy in the long term, as you can easily end up in a situation where they are more goods and services in the economy than there is currency to buy them. This is called a liquidity crisis and it is very bad.
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