[OE. landmearc fem.: see LAND sb. and MARK sb. (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.
982. in Kemble, Cod. Dipl., III. 189. Seo landmearce lið of Terstan upp be Hohtuninga mearce.
a. 1000. Juliana, 635. Ða wæs ʓelæded lond-mearce neah.
1535. Coverdale, Job xxiv. 2. Some men there be, that remoue other mens londe markes.
1611. Bible, Deut. xxvii. 17. Cursed be he that remooueth his neighbours land-marke [Coverdale mark].
1791. Burke, Corr. (1844), III. 211. When … he returned to the possession of his estates,… he found none of the ancient landmarks removed.
1838. Thirlwall, 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. a. 1652. J. Smith, Sel. Disc., iv. 126. May we not too hastily displace the ancient termini, and remove the land-marks of virtue and vice?
1771. Junius’ Lett., lxi. 319. He has introduced new law, and removed the landmarks established by former decisions.
1858. Bright, 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.]
1550. W. Lynne, Carion’s Cron., 255. In his going 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 that characterizes a neighborhood or district.
1570. Dee, Math. Pref., 18. Hydrographie, requireth a particular Register of certaine Landmarkes … from the sea.
1627. Capt. 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.
1667. Milton, P. L., XI. 432. Ith’ midst an Altar as the Land-mark stood.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe, II. ii. (1840), 34. Having no chart for the coast, nor any land-mark.
1856. Froude, Hist. Eng. (1858), II. vii. 183. Like unskilful sailors who have lost the landmarks of their course.
1859. Dickens, Lett. (1880), II. 91. The house altogether is the great landmark of the whole neighbourhood.
fig. 1712. Hughes, Spect., No. 316, ¶ 2. Now one Face of Indolence overspreads the whole, and I have no Land-mark to direct my self by.
1880. Times, 18 Sept., 9/3. Two or three landmarks, however, in the dreary waste [of evidence] attract attention.
3. (In mod. use.) An object that 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.
1859. C. Barker, Assoc. Princ., ii. 46. This important landmark [the first printing-press] in our social history.
1862. Mill, Utilit., 5. This remarkable man [Kant], whose system of thought will long remain one of the landmarks in the history of philosophical speculation.
1870. Rolleston, 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.
1884. W. K. Parker, Mammalian Descent, vii. (1885), 177–8. In these skulls the landmarks are all gone, except the holes for the vessels and nerves [etc.].
