EARMARK • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Earmark

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/ˈɪrmˌɑrk/ Listen

verb

Earmark v. t. (past & past part. earmarked; pres. part. earmarking)

To mark, as sheep, by cropping or slitting the ear.

To designate or reserve for a specific purpose; as, the alumni fund was earmarked for dormitory construction.

noun

Earmark n.

A mark on the ear of sheep, oxen, dogs, etc., as by cropping or slitting.

A mark for identification; a distinguishing mark. "Money is said to have no earmark." "Flying, he (a slave) should be described by the rounding of his head, and his earmark." "A set of intellectual ideas... have earmarks upon them, no tokens of a particular proprietor."

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Etymology of 'Earmark'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Earmark" Quotes from Famous Books

... dear mark There like an earmark, Only a tear mark A woman let fall?— As bending over She bade me discover, "Who plays ...

— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey

... are to be thoroughly overhauled. You wish, for some reason, to inspect their case fully yourself, or you must tail your lambs, in which case every lamb has to be caught, and you will cut its tail off, and ear-mark it with your own earmark; or, again, you will see fit to draft out all the lambs that are ready for weaning; or you may wish to cull the mob, and sell off the worst-woolled sheep; or your neighbour's sheep may have joined ...

— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler

... with the plot of the piece. In fact, irrelevancy appears to the European the chief characteristic of what he sees on the stage of a Japanese theatre. Nor does the play, as is usual in serious dramas in this country, revolve round one character, the hero or heroine. Indeed it is not always easy to earmark, so to speak, the leading character, and it is occasionally doubtful in many Japanese plays whether there is any hero or heroine. But the same remark may be made here as in reference to the literature ...

— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery