marker
Pluralmarkers
Pluralmarkers
Formsmarkers, markering, markered
- 1A felt-tipped pen that writes in bold, often permanent ink.
The teacher uncapped a marker and started filling the whiteboard.
Permanent markers leave ink that water cannot wash away.
Similarfelt-tip
Note
The sense the whole family grows from: the word is simply mark plus -er, one that makes marks. Felt-tipped pens took the name, and permanent marker is its most familiar pairing, a warning that some ink will not come off a whiteboard. The ink left behind can be called marker, as a mass noun, and the pen also produced a verb.
- 2A person or thing that makes marks of any kind.
Before kickoff, the groundskeeper rolled the marker down the sidelines, leaving a crisp white line behind it.
Working a step ahead of the loggers, the marker sprayed an orange stripe on every tree that was to come down.
Note
The plain sense the specialized ones narrow from: mark plus -er, the ending that turns a verb into whoever or whatever does it. Because that ending names people and tools alike, the same word covers the grader of exams and the felt-tipped pen. Context usually decides which is meant, and the pronoun who removes all doubt: the marker who walks ahead of the loggers is a person, not a spray can.
- 3
- 4A target or goal to work toward, whether a physical point or an abstract achievement.
Reaching a million users became the startup's next marker.
Each chapter she finished felt like a marker on the long road to her degree.
Similarmilestone, goal, target, benchmark
Note
The objective sense lives mostly in the idiom put down a marker, meaning to show early and clearly the standard you mean to hold. Phil McNulty, writing for BBC Sport in 2013, used it of a win that put down a marker for how a manager wants his team to play. In use it signals intent more than a goal already reached.
- 5A spot on a stage or set, usually shown by a small X on the floor, where an actor is to stand or move during a scene.
The director reminded each actor to find their marker before the take.
She stepped onto her marker just as the lights came up.
Similarmark
Note
Stage and screen share this spot on the floor, usually an X, and an actor's job is to arrive on it at the right moment. The verbs that go with it are find and step onto. The same word also serves as the call to take positions, so on a set marker can name both the place and the instruction to go there.
- 6
- 7In genetics, a gene or DNA sequence whose position on a chromosome is known, making it useful for identifying individuals or species.
Researchers located a marker on the chromosome to trace the inherited trait.
Comparing genetic markers across populations revealed their shared ancestry.
Note
Genetics uses markers as signposts. N Manikanda Boopathi's Genetic Mapping and Marker Assisted Selection (2012) describes markers mapped relative to one another on chromosomes, with genes of interest then found through their linkage to them. The phrase marker-assisted selection captures the working idea: selection guided by a sequence whose position is already known.
- 8A substance used as an indicator in diagnosis or analysis, also called a biomarker.
The lab measured a marker that signals liver damage.
Several markers in the blood sample suggested an infection.
Note
Medicine's version measures rather than locates: a substance whose presence or level points toward a diagnosis or other finding. Biomarker is the fuller term, and in this sense the two are interchangeable. Do not confuse it with the genetic marker, which is a stretch of DNA identified by its fixed place on a chromosome.
- 9A defensive player assigned to closely guard one or more opposing attackers.
The coach assigned his strongest marker to the opposing playmaker.
Quick markers tracked every run the forwards made.
Similardefender
Note
Sport's defender takes the name from the verb mark, to stay close to an opponent. A forward escapes a marker. Jonathan Jurejko, reporting for BBC Sport in 2012, wrote of Cisse's sharp movement allowing him to escape marker Robert Huth. In that sentence the word sits before the name almost like a title.
- 10In linguistics, a word or attached word part that signals a grammatical function, such as the -s that marks a plural.
English adds a marker to show past tense on regular verbs.
Some languages use separate markers for case and number.
Note
In grammar the word means something that carries a function, not a meaning of its own. It can be a free morpheme, which stands as a separate word, or a bound one attached to another word, like the past-tense ending on regular English verbs. Hence tense markers, case markers and number markers. Keep it apart from the short form of discourse marker, which organizes conversation rather than grammar.
- 11A person who assigns marks to tests, examinations, and similar work; a grader.
A marker checks each script against the official mark scheme.
Experienced markers can mark dozens of papers in a day.
Similargrader, examiner, assessor
Note
A British word, built on the verb British English uses for grading work: teachers and examiners mark papers, so the person doing it is a marker. Grader says the same thing. It takes adjectives of strictness. Mike Brown, asked by Rail in 2020 to score his own time at TfL, gave himself 8½ and explained, "I'm a hard marker!"
- 12A person who keeps score, especially one who tallies the score in a game of billiards.
The marker chalked up each point as the game went on.
A good marker never loses count during a long match.
Similarscorer, scorekeeper
- 13To write or draw on a surface using a marker pen.
She markered bold arrows across the whiteboard to guide the team.
Volunteers marker a price on every box before the yard sale opens.
Note
A verb made straight from the pen, regular in every form: markers, markering, markered. Mike Sula, writing in the Chicago Reader in 2002, describes a page on which someone has markered a line of advice. Where precision matters, write with a marker or simply mark is the safer phrasing.
- 14The ink marks or leftover ink from a felt-tipped pen.
A faint smell of marker hung over the freshly labeled boxes.
He smudged the marker before it had time to dry.
Similarink
Note
The uncountable use treats marker as a substance, the ink itself rather than the pen, as in got marker all over the walls. It is colloquial and takes words of quantity rather than number: some marker, a smear of marker. Two markers would mean two pens. In careful writing, ink or marker ink says the same thing.
- 15A personal favor owed to someone, whether recorded in writing or not.
He cashed in an old marker to get his nephew an interview.
After everything she did for them, they owed her more than one marker.
Similarfavor
Note
The figurative heir of the slang IOU: a favor owed, whether anyone wrote it down or not. The idiom is call in a marker, meaning to ask for a favor you are owed, often when you cannot manage alone. Cash in an old marker works the same way, and the plural is common, as in calling in some of our markers.
- 16A device that fires paintballs, used in the sport of paintball.
She upgraded her marker with a new barrel before the tournament.
Every marker has to pass a velocity check before the match.
Similargun
Note
Paintball names its device after the mark-making family: what it leaves is a splash of paint on the player it hits. Within the sport the word is the ordinary name for the device. It takes the same verbs as other equipment, so you upgrade a marker, fit it with a new barrel, or take it to a velocity check before a match.
- 17An informal written record of a debt; an IOU.
The gambler left a marker at the table to cover his losses.
He finally paid off a marker he had owed for months.
SimilarIOU
Note
American slang for a debt on paper and a close equivalent of IOU: a written promise to pay that stands in for the money itself. Because it is slang, it suits casual talk far better than formal finance. In a contract or a letter to a bank, use IOU or a plainer phrase. The paper slip is the literal source of a favor owed.
- 18Ellipsis of discourse marker.
Speakers use a marker like 'so' to launch into an explanation.
The professor counted every marker the students dropped into their answers.
Note
A clipped form: once a linguistics text has said discourse marker, it can go on with marker alone. These are the small words and phrases that steer talk, signaling a change of topic, a rephrasing, hedging or backchanneling, the way so launches an explanation. Because the grammatical sense shares the short form, context has to decide which kind is meant.
- 19A player employed by a private club to play games against its members.
The billiard room kept a marker on hand to partner any member who wanted a match.
I played seven sets of doubles with Mitchell (the second best player in Ceylon) and David, the native marker.
1907, “Mr. A. F. Wilding's Tour”, in New Zealand HeraldNote
A dated club job: a professional kept by a club to play its members on racquets, squash and billiards. In Racquets, tennis, and squash (1903), Eustace Miles counts the Marker's wages and tips among the costs of play. Accounts from India and Ceylon in 1904 and 1907 praise local markers of real skill. The job sat alongside the billiard scorekeeper.
- 20A person or thing used to mark a position or amount.
Hikers tied a bright marker to the branch to show the way back.
A floating marker showed where the diver had gone down.
Similarflag, sign, indicator, signpost
Note
The head of the second family: things that show where something is or how much there is, from trail blazes to genes. It stretches easily to the figurative. Deborah Schwartz, writing in Gay Community News in 1990, reports an election described as a marker for the distance a community had come. There it measures progress rather than standing as a post in the ground.
- 21A formal certification that a company was the first to report a cartel to a competition authority, generally entitling it to greater leniency in the penalties that follow.
- 22A direction from a camera operator telling actors to take their positions, ready for a take.
- 23The soldier who leads a wheeling column or sets the direction for a line of troops to align on.
- 24An attachment for a sewing machine that creases the fabric to mark a sewing line.
- 25A point added to a team's or player's score in a game or contest.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of marker apart? Answer 4 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
Formed from "mark" combined with the suffix "-er".