landmark

Plurallandmarks

Formslandmarks, landmarking, landmarked

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A notable location widely recognized for its historical, cultural, or geographical significance.

   The old courthouse became a beloved landmark after its restoration in the 1920s.

   Tourists flocked to the city's landmarks, from the cathedral to the ancient bridge.

   Similarmonument, sight

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A recognizable natural or man-made feature that people use to orient themselves or navigate.

   Sailors once relied on the lighthouse as a landmark when approaching the harbor.

   Without familiar landmarks, the pilots had trouble judging their position over the desert.

   Similarmarker, mark

3. 3
   nounfigurativelycountablebefore a noun

   A major event or discovery, one significant enough to mark a turning point in its field.

   The discovery of penicillin was a landmark in modern medicine.

   Historians regard the printing press as a landmark of human invention.

   Similarmilestone

   Note

   An event becomes a landmark in this figurative sense when later history is measured from it. The word often works like an adjective placed before a noun, as in a landmark ruling, a landmark case or a landmark paper in neurosurgery. George W. Bush, speaking in 2005, called recent elections "landmark events in the history of liberty." Milestone is its closest synonym.

   The court's landmark ruling reshaped the law on privacy.

   She published a landmark paper in neurosurgery.

4. 4
   nounhistoricalcountable

   An object, typically a stone or a tree, set up or used to mark the boundary of a piece of land.

   The deed described the property line as running from the creek to a granite landmark on the hilltop.

   Surveyors in colonial Virginia often recorded trees and boulders as landmarks separating adjoining tracts.

   Similarmarker

   Note

   The oldest sense, and the one the word was built for: Old English landmearc meant simply "boundary," a mark set into the land itself. Today it belongs to historical writing, such as old deeds, surveys and accounts of how property was once divided. Merestone names the same thing more narrowly. In modern prose the word usually means a feature for finding your way instead.

5. 5
   verbUStransitive

   To officially designate a site or building as a landmark, typically through a government preservation process.

   The preservation commission voted to landmark the Art Deco office tower.

   The brownstone was landmarked in 1985, which restricts changes to its facade.

   Similardesignate, list

   Note

   American preservation language turned the noun into a verb, and the participle is one of its most familiar shapes. Writing in the New York Times in 2007, Jeff Vandam quoted the observation that permitted demolition rarely occurs on landmarked buildings. The verb can also simply mean "mark out." In the AA Book of British Villages (1980), a steeple "landmarks" one of Suffolk's most beautiful churches.

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