unmarkedadj.
/(ˌ)ʌnˈmɑːkt/, U.S. /ˌənˈmɑrkt/ I. Not bearing or distinguished by a mark.
1.
a. That has not been marked; bearing no mark (either literal or figurative); esp. having no distinguishing or identifying mark. Also: not indicated or recorded by a mark or marker.
ΘΚΠ
society > communication > indication > that which identifies or distinguishes > [adjective] > identified or distinguished > not
unmarked1480
tokenlessa1763
undenoted1859
unbadged1875
pointless1879
society > communication > indication > marking > imprinting > [adjective] > not impressed
unmarked1480
unimpressed1868
1480 R. Cely Let. 12 Dec. in Cely Lett. (1975) 102 I haue schypyd..M1iiijxxxiij fellys, qwherof be iiijc xlvj Cottysowlde onmarkyd, and the rembnant..be markyd wyth an O.
c1503 Beuys of Southhamptowne (Pynson) sig. I.iiiv None went vnmarked away, That beuys hyt wyth morglay.
c1600 R. Lindsay Hist. & Cron. Scotl. (1899) II. 320 Nane wald resawe thame [sc. pennies] nathir marcat nor onmarcat.
1635 Proclam. Manuf. Soape There to search, seize, take and carry away any Soape vnmarked by the said Company, or not made vnder the Rule and Gouernment of the said Company.
1651 R. Baxter Plain Script. Proof Infants Church-membership & Baptism 199 You may know such a man's Flock of Sheep by the mark; when yet perhaps some may be unmarkt.
1705 London Gaz. No. 4104/4 Stoln.., 2 Sweet-meat Spoons, forked, unmarked.
?1790 J. Imison Curious & Misc. Articles (new ed.) 162 in School of Arts (ed. 2) That the magnet..may rest with its marked end on the unmarked end of A.
1831 E. J. Trelawny Adventures Younger Son iii. xxxv*. 243 We got under weigh, threading cautiously..the groups of islands; many of which were unknown, or unmarked on any chart.
1854 P. B. Shillaber Rhymes with Reason & Without 91 Where Virtue ever bright appears, Undimmed, unmarked by changing years.
1881 Proc. Royal Geogr. Soc. 3 7 H.M.S. Boadicea and Tenedos, which in the Zulu war narrowly escaped shipwreck on an unmarked shoal.
1936 M. Mitchell Gone with the Wind xxx. 502 The thousands in unmarked graves who would never come home.
1986 S. R. Donaldson Mirror of her Dreams (1987) i. i. 9 [Her face] seemed..so unmarked by experience, decision, or impact that she was dimly surprised to find it still able to cast a reflection.
2010 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 26 Jan. a17/4 He saw police officers sitting in an unmarked car.
b. Not set apart as distinct or clearly defined; not distinguished from others by some feature, characteristic, etc.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > attention and judgement > judgement or decision > absence of prejudice > [adjective] > occupying middle position
neutral1494
commoderate1590
neutera1591
mediatinga1729
unmarked1791
goldena1817
the world > relative properties > relationship > uniformity > [adjective] > not striped, marked, or ridged
unmarked1815
unstripeda1836
untraversed1846
unstreaked1861
unveined1869
unstriated1877
patchless1927
1791 F. Burney Jrnl. Dec. (1972) I. 103 Our visit to Mrs. Montagu turned out very unmarked; I met my good Mrs. & Miss ord, & a little chat with them was all my entertainment.
1815 Monthly Rev. 76 455 Virgil's characters are mostly cold, unmarked, and not attaching.
1882 F. W. Farrar Early Days Christianity II. 482 Compositions so short..and so unmarked by special features.
1904 Harper's Monthly Mag. Apr. 659/2 Timber-laden steamships arrive from Norway and at high water go gently into one of the basins: to be unloaded there at everybody's leisure while the unmarked days run on.
1998 F. S. Gerard in B. H. Sklarew et al. Bertolucci's The Last Emperor i. iii. 74 This day of transition, apparently unmarked by any noteworthy incidents.
c. Linguistics. Of a word, form, construction, etc., in a binary opposition: distinguished by the absence of a positive feature of sound, meaning, structure, etc.; that is not marked (marked adj. 1c). Also more generally: designating the more usual, or more frequent, of two alternatives; default.Opposed to marked (marked adj. 1c). See also markedness n. 2.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > language > linguistics > [adjective] > specific types or features of linguistic analysis
paradigmatic1891
realizational1904
non-distinctive1916
principled1919
binary1921
over-differentiated1927
marked1933
unmarked1933
isomorphic1937
nuclear1937
contrastive1940
metalinguistic1941
metalingual1942
componential1947
linear1955
rewrite1960
unordered1960
taxonomic1962
non-binary1971
1933 L. Bloomfield Lang. xvi. 268 A phrase consisting of the preposition to and an infinitive expression belongs to the special form-class of marked infinitive phrases, whose function differs from that of unmarked infinitive expressions.
1964 C. Barber Ling. Change Present-day Eng. iv. 105 Author..can be used of both men and women; this is called the unmarked member of the pair [author: authoress].
1978 Sci. Amer. Nov. 95/1 In the case of ‘wide’ and ‘narrow’, ‘wide’ is the unmarked word: asking ‘How wide is the road?’ does not suggest that the road is wide, but asking ‘How narrow is the road?’ does suggest that the road is narrow.
1980 Amer. Speech 55 88 Features of an unmarked register may be imported into a marked one, but not vice versa.
2011 Internat. Jrnl. Amer. Linguistics 77 499 Only biological gender is distinguished in Baure, with masculine as the unmarked form referring to all nouns except for the biologically feminine.
2. Of a piece of work, an examination paper, etc.: not assigned a mark or marks; unassessed; uncorrected. Cf. mark v. 9b.
ΚΠ
1888 4th Rep. U.S. Civil Service Comm. 70 in U.S. Congress. Serial Set (50th Congr., 1st Sess.: Senate Executive Doc. 223) XII As a consequence, a large number of unmarked examination papers accumulated.
1908 Cornhill Mag. May 647 [He] bundled the unmarked books into a cupboard, heedless of a decree which said that all exercises should be corrected the day they were written.
1955 Eng. Jrnl. 44 77 I do not grade every paper submitted by each student, but I keep all unmarked papers in the file.
2012 Times Educ. Suppl. (Nexis) 23 Nov. 22 There were bins full of unmarked Sats papers.
3. Sport. Of a player in a team game, as football, hockey, etc.: not marked or shadowed by a player from the opposing team. Cf. mark v. 17.Not used in North America.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > sport > player or sportsperson > [adjective] > other attributes
scienced1818
starting1855
international1866
all-American1887
unmarked1890
fouled1898
muckerish1900
power1932
playmaking1933
open1937
wild card1940
wide-body1986
1890 Dundee Courier & Argus 24 Mar. G. D. B. Shepherd threw it [sc. the ball] out smartly to Jardine, who was unmarked.
1927 ‘R. Bird’ Moreleigh Mascot xv. 158 Orton's whooped as they saw that old Sackville was unmarked and had a clear run-in.
1954 Goulburn (New S. Wales) Evening Post 4 Aug. 8/6 Players let goal after goal go begging simply because they would not pass the ball to an unmarked player.
2014 Nottingham Post (Nexis) 12 Mar. 54 Djamel Abdoun delivered a precise corner from the right, which found Lascelles unmarked.
II. Not noticed or remarked.
4. Unnoticed, unobserved, unremarked.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > attention and judgement > inattention > [adjective] > not noticed
unobserved?1495
unmindeda1513
unmarked1533
unpointed ata1555
unnoted1565
unrespecteda1586
unnoticed1660
unremarked1660
1533 T. More Debellacyon Salem & Bizance ii. xx. f. cliii Here was hym selfe fayne.., to begyle the reader vppon the readyng of the place, and make hym passe ouer his faute for the whyle vnmarked.
1583 G. Babington Very Fruitfull Expos. Commaundem. vi. 284 Satan breedeth by his vnmarked creeping into our affections a misliking of such a man or woman.
1628 S. D'Ewes Jrnl. Parl. (1783) 42 Hee passed quietlie unmarked..out of the saied hall.
1667 J. Milton Paradise Lost x. 441 He through the midst unmarkt ..past. View more context for this quotation
1744 M. Akenside Pleasures Imagination ii. 184 Oft the hours From morn to eve have stol'n unmark'd away.
1821 W. Scott Kenilworth II. i. 13 Like one who has suddenly recognized some mighty hero..in the person of an unknown and unmarked stranger.
1850 Ld. Tennyson In Memoriam xcvi. 146 Let her great Danube rolling fair Enwind her isles, unmarked of me. View more context for this quotation
1910 ‘A. Hope’ Second String vi. 99 To both of them the bandying of words was but chaff; by both the exchange of glances went unmarked.
1999 J. M. Cooper Reason & Emotion viii. 195 The importance of the Magna Moralia in this latter connection deserves emphasis, since it tends to go unmarked by most non-philosophical scholars.
Derivatives
unˈmarkedness n. the state or quality of being unmarked (chiefly in sense 1c); cf. markedness n.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > language > linguistics > [noun] > distinguishing feature > state of having or not having
unmarkedness1847
markedness1968
1847 J. M. Wilson Rural Cycl. I. 60/2 Strenuous efforts are..made by dishonest dealers to pass off a four-year-old colt for a five-year-old horse; but these may be detected..by the smallness and unmarkedness of the corner nippers.
1969 Internat. Jrnl. Amer. Linguistics 35 63/2 Possibly such a specification—complete unmarkedness for pitch-level—could be permitted for non-tone languages, in which syllables as such do not have intrinsic pitch.
1988 J. Seidler tr. W. Mayerthaler Morphological Naturalness i. 9 Other cases in which the relative unmarkedness of a category results from the biological factors of the speaker..are easily found.
2007 Language 83 306 These vowels occur only when at least one of the surrounding consonants is a sonorant. Hall attributes this to the relative unmarkedness of vowel-sonorant overlap.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2014; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.1480