demarcation

Etymology

It is borrowed from Spanish demarcación,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} with Portuguese demarcação beside it;^[2][8][4] Barnhart and Ayto allow that it may have come through French démarcation,^[9][10] which Klein gives as the immediate source,^[11] and the OED dates the French word to 1752 and takes it from Spanish.^[2] Dictionary.com calls it a Latinization of the Spanish word.^[12] The Spanish noun is formed from demarcar (“to mark out the bounds of”),^[2][9][5] from de- and marcar (“to mark”),^[2][13][9] which the American Heritage Dictionary takes from Italian marcare, of Germanic origin;^[3][12] Barnhart compares Old High German marca, and the word is thus related to English mark.^[9][10][13] The Spanish word was first used in the phrase línea de demarcación (Portuguese linha de demarcação), the line laid down by Pope Alexander VI in 1493 to divide the New World between Spain and Portugal.^{[9][2][13][10][6]}

Earliest recorded meaning

The line dividing the Spanish from the Portuguese Indies: 1728, in Chambers's Cyclopaedia, under Line.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to 1737,^[13] Barnhart to 1727–52.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In English too the word first named the papal line of 1493, in the phrase line of demarcation, which is still its most common setting.^[10][9][7] From 1801 it was used of other lines dividing regions.^[2][13] The figurative use, for any separation or distinction, goes back to 1776, in Bentham;^[2] Ayto puts the general use by the middle of the 18th century.^[10] The verb demarcate followed in 1816 as a back-formation.^[9][2][5] In the 20th century the word entered industrial relations: a demarcation dispute is a quarrel between trade unions over which of them may do a given kind of work, recorded from 1930.^[2][10][14]

Timeline

• 1728 – the line dividing the Spanish and Portuguese Indies.^[2]
• 1776 – figurative, a separation or distinction.^[2]
• 1801 – any line dividing regions.^[2][13]
• 1930 – attributive, of the scope of work allotted to a trade union (demarcation dispute).^[2][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of fixing the boundaries or limits of something.^[8][14][2]
2. A dividing line or limit, as in line of demarcation.^[14][4]
3. A clear separation or distinction between two things: There is no sharp demarcation between the two dialects.^[8][14]
4. (chiefly British) The strict division of kinds of work between members of different trade unions, as in demarcation dispute.^[14][2]

Word family

• demarcate

Related words

• demark
• mark
• march
• marque

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
7. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b c d e f g Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
14. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins