hallmark

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hallmark

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1721. hall +‎ mark, from Goldsmiths' Hall in London, the site of the assay office, official stamp of purity in gold and silver articles. The general sense of “mark of quality” first recorded 1864. Use as a verb from 1773.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈhɔːlmɑːk/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈhɔlmɑɹk/
• Hyphenation: hall‧mark

hallmark (plural hallmarks)

1. (figurative) A distinguishing characteristic.
   • 1894 December – 1895 November, Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], published 1896, →OCLC:

     You know what a university is, and a university degree? It is the necessary hallmark of a man who wants to do anything in teaching.

   • 1907, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter VII, in Through the Magic Door, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC, page 147:

     The inference appears to be that there is some subtle connection between immorality and art, as if the handling of the lewd, or the depicting of it, were in some sort the hallmark of the true artist.

   • 1910 March, Jack London, “The Terrible Solomons”, in South Sea Tales, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, published October 1911, →OCLC, page 200:

     A man needs only to be careful—and lucky—to live a long time in the Solomons; but he must also be of the right sort. He must have the hall-mark of the inevitable white man stamped upon his soul.

   • a. 1911, David Graham Phillips, Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise‎^[1]:

     In everything Brent said and did and wore, in all his movements, gestures, expressions, there was the unmistakable hallmark of the man worth while.

   • 2011 February 1, Phil McNulty, “Arsenal 2 - 1 Everton”, in BBC‎^[2]:

     Arsene Wenger's side showed little of the style and fluidity that is their hallmark but this was about digging deep and getting the job done, qualities they demonstrated and that will serve them well as the season reaches its climax.

2. An official marking made by a trusted party, usually an assay office, on items made of precious metals.
   • 2007, John Zerzan John, Silence:

     It can highlight our embodiment, a qualitative step away from the hallmark machines that work so resolutely to disembody us.

hallmark (third-person singular simple present hallmarks, present participle hallmarking, simple past and past participle hallmarked)

1. To provide or stamp with a hallmark.
   • 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Ayrsham Mystery”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:

     The cane was undoubtedly of foreign make, for it had a solid silver ferrule at one end, which was not English hall–marked.

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[18]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:

     […] everything on my plate those forks and fishslicers were hallmarked silver too I wish I had some I could easily have slipped a couple into my muff when I was playing with them […]

• benchmark