trade-mark, n.
(ˈtreɪdmɑːk)
[f. trade n. + mark n.1]
a. A mark (secured by legal registration or, in some countries, established by use) used by a manufacturer or trader to distinguish his goods from similar wares of other firms; usually a distinctive device or figure, a fancy name or trade name, or the name of an individual or firm, marked or impressed on the article or upon the package, etc., in or with which it is sold.
| [1571 Letters Patent to R. Matthews in Edmunds Patent Law (1897) 885 To make the said haftes called Turky haftes for knyves, and for his marke to haue vpon the blade and hafte of the same knyfes..a halfe Moone.] 1838 Mylne & Craig Reports of Cases III. 338 The Court will grant a perpetual injunction against the use, by one tradesman, of the trade marks of another. 1862 Act 25 & 26 Vict. c. 88 §1 The Expression ‘Trade Mark’ shall include any..Name, Signature, Word, Letter, Device [etc.] ..lawfully used by any Person to denote any Chattel, or (in Scotland) any Article of Trade [etc.]..to be an Article or Thing of the Manufacture..of such Person, or to be an Article or Thing of any peculiar or particular Description made or sold by such Person. 1880 Print. Trades Jrnl. xxxi. 26 The owl is the trade-mark of the firm. |
b. fig. A distinctive mark or token. Also attrib. as adj.
| 1869 ‘Mark Twain’ Innocents Abroad xxiii. 238 We see other monks looking tranquilly up to heaven, but having no trade-mark. 1873 Browning Red Cotton Night-Cap Country 947 Trade-mark that stamps each word and deed. 1889 Doyle Micah Clarke 311 The trade mark upon your forehead is especially hard to overlook. 1898 Bodley France II. iv. vi. 406 Opportunists..utilised his name as the trade-mark of their parliamentary group. 1977 South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) 13 Apr. 7/2 Jimmy Shtoow'd, to phonetically adopt his trademark drawl, has an unnerving ‘look’ for interviewers. 1983 Daily Tel. 18 Mar. 17/2 Fans need not worry: her trademark French rayon jersey made up at least half the collection. |
c. attrib., as trade-mark name, trade-mark registration.
| 1901 Daily Chron. 2 Dec. 7/1 A belated perambulator..with the trade-mark name of ‘The Prince of Wales’. 1909 Chem. & Druggist 20 Feb. 315/2 Invented words should be protected by trade-mark registration; by themselves they cannot be copyrighted. |
Hence ˈtrade-ˌmark v., trans. to affix or imprint a trade-mark upon; ˈtrade-marked ppl. a.; ˈtrade-marking vbl. n.
| 1904 D. Sladen Lovers Japan x, Bottled beer (made in Japan..and trade-marked with a big dragon). 1906 Westm. Gaz. 16 Mar. 5/2 The Bill..provided for the trade-marking of all imported beers. 1936 E. B. White Let. 24 Dec. (1976) 146 Your public approval of a trademarked product and your influence can be bought at a price. 1983 P. Devlin All of us There xi. 133 The old [pub]..with its great copper-banded barrels and old trade-marked mirrors. |