Word.ws English Dictionary

hallmark

Syllables: hall·mark/ˈhɔːlmɑːk/US/ˈhɔlmɑɹk/

hallmark noun: a distinguishing characteristic.

Noun

hallmark (plural hallmarks)

  1. (figuratively) A distinguishing characteristic.
    • You know what a university is, and a university degree? It is the necessary hallmark of a man who wants to do anything in teaching.1894 December – 1895 November, Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], published 1896, →OCLC
    • The inference appears to be that there is some subtle connection between immorality and art, as if the handling of the lewd, or the depicting of it, were in some sort the hallmark of the true artist.1907, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter VII, in Through the Magic Door, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC, page 147
  2. An official marking made by a trusted party, usually an assay office, on items made of precious metals.
    • It can highlight our embodiment, a qualitative step away from the hallmark machines that work so resolutely to disembody us.2007, John Zerzan, Silence

Verb

hallmark (third-person singular simple present hallmarks, present participle hallmarking, simple past and past participle hallmarked)

  1. To provide or stamp with a hallmark.
    • The cane was undoubtedly of foreign make, for it had a solid silver ferrule at one end, which was not English hall–marked.1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Ayrsham Mystery”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London...
    • […]everything on my plate those forks and fishslicers were hallmarked silver too I wish I had some I could easily have slipped a couple into my muff when I was playing with them[…]1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[18]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC

Proper noun capitalized: Hallmark

Hallmark (plural Hallmarks)

  1. A surname.
  2. (abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of Hallmark Cards.

hallmark meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Punjabi

hallmark in Tamil

ஹால்மார்க் செய்ய

hallmark in Bengali

হলমার্ক, হালমার্ক, হলমার্ক করতে

hallmark in Malayalam

ഹാൾമാർക്ക്, ഹാൾമാർക്കിലേക്ക്, ഹോൾമാർക്ക് ചെയ്യാൻ

hallmark in Punjabi

ਹਾਲਮਾਰਕ, ਹੋਲਮਾਰਕ, ਹਾਲਮਾਰਕ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ
More languagesFewer languages
hallmark in Gujarati
હોલમાર્ક, હોલમાર્ક કરવા માટે, હોલમાર્ક કરવા
hallmark in Odia
ହୋଲମାର୍କ, ହୋଲମାର୍କ କରିବା ପାଇଁ, ହୋଲମାର୍କ କରିବାକୁ
hallmark in Nepali
होलमार्क, हालमार्क, हलमार्क
hallmark in Vietnamese
dấu ấn

Examples of hallmark in a sentence

  • Good jazz music has long been held up as a hallmark of authentic Washingtonian culture.
  • This bears all the hallmarks of a terrorist attack.
  • Extensive comorbidity is the hallmark of immunodeficiencies.

All 40 example sentences with hallmark

Forms of hallmark

Noun
pluralhallmarks
Verb
third-person singular presenthallmarks
present participlehallmarking
past participlehallmarked
pasthallmarked
Proper noun
pluralHallmarks

Plural of hallmark: hallmarks

Origin of hallmark

1721. From hall + mark, from Goldsmiths' Hall in London, the site of the assay office, official stamp of purity in gold and silver articles. The general sense of “mark of quality” first recorded 1864. Use as a verb from 1773.

The company is named after its founder, J. C. Hall, and a reference to hallmark (“official marking”).

Words formed from hallmark

Phrases with hallmark

Questions about hallmark

What does hallmark mean?
Hallmark means a distinguishing characteristic.
What is hallmark in Tamil?
Hallmark in Tamil is ஹால்மார்க் செய்ய. See Hallmark meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is hallmark?
Hallmark can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce hallmark?
Hallmark is pronounced /ˈhɔːlmɑːk/ (UK).
What is the plural of hallmark?
The plural of hallmark is hallmarks.

Words near hallmark in the dictionary

  1. hallite
  2. hallites
  3. Halliwell
  4. Halliwells
  5. hallman
  6. hallmark
  7. hallmark holiday
  8. hallmark holidays
  9. Hallmark moment
  10. Hallmark moments
  11. hallmarked

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hallmark (page history and authors); Hallmark (page history and authors); hallmark (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hallmark (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hallmark (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hallmark (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hallmark (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hallmark (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hallmark (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-hallmark.wav.

Cite this entry: “hallmark.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hallmark. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.