subs. (colloquial).—1.  A preference; a fancy.

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  1780.  FOOTE, The Minor, ii. Did I not tell you old Moll was your MARK? Here she has brought a pretty piece of man’s meat already.

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  1887.  W. E. HENLEY, Culture in the Slums.

        My MARK’S a tidy little feed,
And ’Enery Irving’s gallery.

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  1883.  M. E. BRADDON, The Golden Calf, ch. xi. Vernon was what Rogers the butler called ‘a MARK on’ strawberries and cream.

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  2.  (thieves’).—A person; a PIG (q.v.); a RAW (q.v.). OLD MARK = a lady.

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  3.  (common).—See quot.

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  1823.  BADCOCK (‘Jon Bee’), Dictionary of the Turf, etc., s.v. MARK—(ring). The pit of the stomach is termed THE MARK, and ‘Broughton’s MARK.’ It was Bill Warr’s favourite hit; also, had been Dick Humphries’s.

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  1859.  G. W. MATSELL, Vocabulum; or, The Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.

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  4.  See MARK OF THE BEAST.

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  5.  (thieves’).—A victim.

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  1885.  Pall Mall Gazette, 6 July. The girl, a likely MARK, was a simple country lass.

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  6.  (American).—A street-walker.

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  Verb. (thieves’).—To watch; to pick out a victim. See MARKING, sense 2.

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  TO TOE THE MARK. See TOE.

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  THE MARK OF THE BEAST, subs. phr. (venery).—The female pudendum. Also MARK. For synonyms, see MONOSYLLABLE.

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  1719.  D’URFEY, Wit and Mirth; or Pills to Purge Melancholy, iv. 116.

        Now all my Friends are laid in Grave,
  And nothing they have left me,
But a MARK a Year my Mother gave,
  By which for to protect me:
Yet I live on the Leaguer still,
  As brave as any Lady,
  And all is with a MARK a Year,
  The which my Mother gave me.

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  TO MARK UP, verb. phr. (tailors’).—To know all about (cf. verb.) persons.

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  MARK OF MOUTH, subs. phr. (colloquial).—The tale told by the teeth. (Originally horse-copers’). Cf. the proverb:—‘You mustn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.’

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  1857.  G. A. LAWRENCE, Guy Livingstone, VIII. From a distant corner two ancient virgins, long past MARK OF MOUTH.

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