unmarked

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   bearing no identifying label, sign, number, or visible mark

   An unmarked van waited across the street from the warehouse.

2. 2
   adj

   free from spots, scratches, blemishes, or other visible damage

   The table's polished surface remained unmarked after the move.

3. 3
   adj

   not noticed, commemorated, recorded, or distinguished by anything notable

   The quiet evening passed unmarked by any unusual event.

4. 4
   adj

   in linguistics, lacking a special formal feature and functioning as the neutral or default member of a contrast

   In English, the singular is often the unmarked number form.

Formed from un- + marked, the past participle of mark. Its literal senses negate a visible or identifying mark. In twentieth-century linguistics, unmarked became the term for the ordinary or default member of an opposition, contrasted with a specially marked form.

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