marking

Pluralmarkings

1. 1
   nounusually plural

   The distinctive coloring and patterning that an animal naturally carries on its body.

   A leopard's marking provides camouflage against the dappled forest floor.

   Biologists identified the individual whale by the unique markings on its tail.

   Similarcoloring, pattern, patterning, pigmentation

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A visible mark, spot, or line on the surface of something.

   A faint marking on the page showed where the text had been erased.

   The archaeologists studied the strange markings carved into the stone.

   Similarspot, trace, line, impression, sign

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The act or process of making a mark or sign on something.

   The marking of the boundary required precise measurements.

   Workers began the marking of each crate before shipment.

   Similarlabeling, tagging, demarcation, delineation

   Note

   Football gives the action its liveliest use, where it means guarding an opponent rather than writing on anything. Saj Chowdhury's 2011 BBC match report has Gary Taylor-Fletcher making "the most of slack marking to slot home": loose marking leaves an attacker free. The noun itself is old. It comes from Old English mearcung and is built simply from mark plus -ing.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A symbol or group of letters placed on an object to show what it is or what type it belongs to.

   The marking stamped on the rifle barrel identified the manufacturer.

   Inspectors check the safety markings on every electrical appliance.

   Similarlabel, stamp, symbol, inscription

5. 5
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of mark.

   The surveyor is marking the property lines with stakes.

   Marking the trail carefully prevented hikers from getting lost.

   Note

   The -ing form of mark does double duty. With be it builds the progressive (she is marking the trail), and as a gerund it names the activity (marking the trail took all day). The gerund sits close to the noun for the act. To tell them apart, check whether it takes a direct object like a verb or an article and "of" like a noun.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A configuration of a Petri net defined by how its marks or tokens are distributed across its places.

   Each transition that fires produces a new marking of the Petri net.

   The initial marking determines which transitions are enabled at the start.

   Similarstate

   Note

   Petri net theory uses the word for a snapshot of state. A marking records how many tokens sit in each place, so it stands for the whole modeled system at one instant. Firing an enabled transition moves tokens and yields a new marking, so a run of the net can be read as a sequence of markings. The tokens are also called marks, which explains the name.

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