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Having power to denote; designating or marking off. Proper names are preëminently denotative; telling us that such as object has such a term to denote it, but telling us nothing as to any single attribute. Latham.

Without dimensions; marking dimensions or the limits. Who can draw the soul's dimensive lines Sir J. Davies.

Marking distinction or separation; disjunctive. Discretive proposition (Logic & Gram.), one that expresses distinction, opposition, or variety, by means of discretive particles, as but, though, yet, etc.; as, travelers change their climate, but not their temper.

Marking a difference; distinguishing. -- Dis*crim"i*na`ting*ly, adv. And finds with keen discriminating sight, Black's not so black; -- nor white so very white. Canning.

The act of discriminating, distinguishing, or noting and marking differences. To make an anxious discrimination between the miracle absolute and providential. Trench.

Marking a difference; distinguishing; distinctive; characteristic. That peculiar and discriminative form of life. Johnson.

A marking off by visible signs; separation into parts; division. [Obs.] The distinction of tragedy into acts was not known. Dryden.

Marking or expressing distinction or difference; distinguishing; characteristic; peculiar. The distinctive character and institutions of New England. Bancroft.

iverging; widely diverging; as the branches of a tree, or as lines of sculpture, or color markings on animals, etc.

That divides; separating; marking divisions; graduating. Dividing engine, a machine for graduating circles (as for astronomical instruments) or bars (as for scales); also, for spacing off and cutting teeth in wheels. -- Dividing sinker. (Knitting Mach.). See under Sinker.

The act of drawing up, marking out, or delineating; representation. Dryden.

To run, extend, or produce, as a line on any surface; hence, also, to form by marking; to make by an instrument of delineation; to produce, as a sketch, figure, or picture.

phere (kettledrum) with a single piece of skin to be so beaten; the common instrument for marking time in martial music; one of the pair of tympani in an orchestra, or cavalry band. The drums cry bud-a-dub. Gascoigne.

A small sandglass, running about three minutes, for marking time in boiling eggs; also, a small glass for holding an egg, at table.

A marking upon the back of a cow's udder and the space above it (the perineum), formed by the hair growing upward or outward instead of downward. It is esteemed an index of milking qualities. C. L. Flint.

parchment, or other material, taken in ink from an etched plate. Etching figures (Min.), markings produced on the face of a crystal by the action of an appropriate solvent. They have usually a definite form, and are important as revealing the molecular structure. -- Etching needle, a sharp-pointed steel instrument wi…

A small flag for marking the stations in surveying.

The marking of the notes of a piece of music to guide or regulate the action or use of the fingers.

A tubelike marking, occuring in sandstone and other strata.

The hair side of a piece of leather, or the marking on that side. Knight.