mark out

present singular third person marks out · participle present marking out · participle past marked out · past marked out

1. transitiveTo mark the boundaries of an area—used of land, wood, metal, etc.—before working upon it.
2. transitiveTo classify.

   I don't want to be marked out as a failure.

3. transitiveTo obliterate or cancel with a mark.

   to mark out an item in an account

4. transitiveTo distinguish.

   The hanging-bowl lampshade in marbled glass was two decades pre-war – the kind that marked out aged people.

   1998, Derek Beaven, chapter 9, in Acts of Mutiny, London: Fourth Estate, →ISBN, part 1 (Motion), page 34

   1 more example

   The killing of more than 90 journalists in Iraq in 43 months after the invasion was to mark it out as one of the deadliest conflicts to cover.

   2007, Naomi Sakr, Arab Television Today