| 释义 |
▪ I. landmark, n.|ˈlændmɑːk|
[OE. landmearc fem.: see land n.1 and mark n. (Cf. G. landmark boundary, landmarke sailor's landmark.)]
1. The boundary of a country, estate, etc.; an object set up to mark a boundary line.
982in Kemble Cod. Dipl. III. 189 Seo landmearce lið of Terstan upp be Hohtuninga mearce. a1000Juliana 635 Ða wæs ᵹelæded lond-mearce neah. 1535Coverdale Job xxiv. 2 Some men there be, that remoue other mens londe markes. 1611Bible Deut. xxvii. 17 Cursed be he that remooueth his neighbours land-marke [Coverdale mark]. 1791Burke Corr. (1844) III. 211 When..he returned to the possession of his estates,..he found none of the ancient landmarks removed. 1838Thirlwall Greece II. xiv. 235 The landmarks of Platæa..were carried forward to the Asopus. Ibid. IV. xxxvi. 416 The landmarks which separated the two states had been removed.
fig.a1652J. Smith Sel. Disc. iv. 126 May we not too hastily displace the ancient termini, and remove the land-marks of virtue and vice? 1771Junius' Lett. lxi. 319 He has introduced new law, and removed the landmarks established by former decisions. 1858Bright Sp., Reforms 27 Oct. (1876) 284, I do not wish to endanger or remove any of the ancient landmarks of our Constitution.
†b. ? A district. Obs. [So formerly G. landmark.]
1550W. Lynne Carion's Cron. 255 He wrought much wo to the citie of Brunswike, roauing and burnyng in her suburbes, villages, landmarkes, and iurisdictions.
2. An object in the landscape, which, by its conspicuousness, serves as a guide in the direction of one's course (orig. and esp. as a guide to sailors in navigation); hence, any conspicuous object which characterizes a neighbourhood or district.
1570Dee Math. Pref. 18 Hydrographie, requireth a particular Register of certaine Landmarkes..from the sea. 1627Capt. Smith Seaman's Gram. ix. 43 A Land marke, is any Mountaine, Rocke, Church, Wind-mill or the like, that the Pilot can know by comparing one by another how they beare by the compasse. 1667Milton P.L. xi. 432 Ith' midst an Altar as the Land-mark stood. 1719De Foe Crusoe ii. ii. (1840) 34 Having no chart for the coast, nor any land-mark. 1856Froude Hist. Eng. (1858) II. vii. 183 Like unskilful sailors who have lost the landmarks of their course. 1859Dickens Lett. (1880) II. 91 The house altogether is the great landmark of the whole neighbourhood.
fig.1712Hughes Spect. No. 316 ⁋2 Now one Face of Indolence overspreads the whole, and I have no Land-mark to direct my self by. 1880Times 18 Sept. 9/3 Two or three land-marks, however, in the dreary waste [of evidence] attract attention.
3. (In mod. use.) An object which marks or is associated with some event or stage in a process; esp. a characteristic, a modification, etc., or an event, which marks a period or turning-point in the history of a thing.
1859C. Barker Assoc. Princ. ii. 46 This important land⁓mark in our social history. 1862Mill Utilit. 5 This..man, whose system of thought will long remain one of the land⁓marks in the history of philosophical speculation. 1870Rolleston Anim. Life 127 The black pigment specks which are seen in this variety [of leech]..seem..to point in the same direction as those more constant land-marks just specified. 1884W. K. Parker Mammal. Descent vii. (1885) 177 In these skulls the landmarks are all gone, except the holes for the vessels and nerves [etc.].
Add:[3.] fig. b. attrib. Of an event, action, statement, etc.: historically significant as marking a period or turning-point; epoch-making; spec. in Law, of a legal case or decision. orig. U.S.
1937N.Y. Suppl. CCXCII. 615 All of the cases subsequent to that landmark decision by Chief Justices Marshall lean heavily thereon. 1959PMLA Dec. 593/1 Mr. Chapman has already quoted the landmark statement about relative stress made by Otto Jespersen. 1972Tuscaloosa (Alabama) News 22 Feb. 1 The current federal lawsuit against Partlow State School and Hospital may become a landmark decision in America. 1975New Yorker 10 Feb. 105/1 Majority Leader Cuite rose to praise the Council's previous year as ‘one of the busiest work sessions in history’, noting that this ‘landmark body’ had held twenty-two meetings..during the year. 1986City Limits 16 Oct. 97 The fourth of October saw the 50th anniversary of the battle of Cable Street, a landmark victory for the left. 1990Sky Mag. Apr. 45/2 Glory joins Roots as a landmark film for both the use of black actors and sensitive retelling of a moment from black American history.
▪ II. landmark, v.
[f. the n.]
trans. To be or act as a landmark to; to provide with a landmark.
1921J. F. Porte Sir E. Elgar 8 It is not necessary here to landmark further successes. 1928Sunday Dispatch 9 Dec. 2/2 Her mother, perhaps the only disinterested figure of all the many who landmarked those ten years, had died. |