MARK

1. A character, usually in the form of a cross, made as a substitute for his signature by a person who cannot write, in executing a conveyance or other legal document. It is commonly made as follows: A third person writes the name of the marksman, leaving a blank space between the Christian name and surname; in this space the latter traces the mark, or crossed lines, and above the mark is written “his,” (or “her,”) and below it, “mark.” 2. The sign, writing, or ticket put upon manufactured goods to distinguish them from others, appearing thus in the compound. “trade mark.” 3. A token, evidence, or proof; as in the phrase “a mark of fraud.” 4. A weight used in several parts of Europe, and for several commodities, especially gold and silver. When gold and silver are sold by the mark, it is divided into twenty four carats. 5. A money of accounts in England, and In some other countries a coin. The English mark is two thirds of a pound sterling, or 13s. 4d.; and the Scotch mark is of equal value in Scotch money of account. Enc. Amer. 6. In early Teutonic and English law. A species of village community, being the lowest unit in the political system; one of the forms of the gens or clan, variously known as the “mark,” “gemeinde,” “commune,” or “parish.” Also the land held in common by such a community. The union of several such village communities and their marks, or common lands, forms the next higher political union, the hundred. Freem. Compar. Politics, 116, 117. 7. The word is sometimes used as another form of “marque,” a license of reprisals. Demi mark. Half a mark; a sum of money which was anciently required to be tendered in a writ of right, the effect of such tender being to put the demandant, in the first instance, upon proof of the seisin as stated in his count; that is, to prove that the seisin was in the king’s reign there stated. Rose. Real Act. 216.. High and low water mark. See Wateb Mark.Mark banco. See Marc Banco.