bookmark

Pluralbookmarks

Formsbookmarks, bookmarking, bookmarked

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A strip of material placed between pages to mark where you stopped reading in a book.

   A leather bookmark dangled from the top of the hymnal.

   She kept losing her bookmarks somewhere in the thicker volumes.

   Similarbookmarker

   Note

   The physical sense, and a transparent compound of book plus mark. Middle English already used the bare word merk for the slip itself. The Scandinavian languages built the same word from the same parts: Danish bogmærke, Swedish bokmärke, Norwegian bokmerke, Icelandic bókamerki. Bookmarker means the same thing and is the longer variant. The screen meanings later borrowed the image.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A saved record of a website or file's address that works as a shortcut back to it.

   Her browser held hundreds of bookmarks she rarely revisited.

   He added a bookmark to the documentation page for quick reference.

   Similarfavourites

   Note

   A metaphor carried over from the paper strip: instead of holding a page open, it holds on to where a page or file lives. Because it records only the address and not the content, it is a shortcut rather than a copy. Reopening it fetches whatever is at that address now. Favorites is the common synonym for the same saved shortcuts.

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To save a record of a website or file's address so you can return to it later.

   Researchers often bookmark dozens of sources during a single project.

   He bookmarked the tutorial so he could follow along the next day.

   Similarsave

   Note

   The noun turned verb, and always transitive: you bookmark a page, a tutorial or a source. The thing saved is the object, not the place it is saved to. Its forms are regular: bookmarks, bookmarking, bookmarked. It belongs to the browser shortcut rather than the paper strip. With a printed book, English speaks of placing or leaving a bookmark instead.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   In a database, a pointer held in a nonclustered index that locates a row in a clustered index or in a heap table.

   The query engine follows the bookmark from the index to the actual data row.

   Without a covering index, the system resolves each match through a bookmark.

   Similarpointer

   Note

   Database engines use the word for an internal locator, not something a user saves. An entry in a nonclustered index needs a way to reach the full row, and the bookmark is that link. Its form depends on how the table is stored. Where a clustered index exists, the bookmark is that index's key. Where the table is a heap, it is a row identifier pointing to the row's location.

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