Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

demarcation

UK/ˌdɛm.ɑːˈkeɪ.ʃən/US/ˌdɛm.ɑɹˈkeɪ.ʃən/
nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,882 of 15,258leans writtenformal · an editor’s judgement

Other forms: demarcations

Demarcation is the marking of a boundary between things. Drawing the line, and agreeing where it falls.

The word is formal and it belongs to geography, law and industrial relations. That last use was once a running battle in British industry, since demarcation disputes were arguments between trade unions about which trade was entitled to do which job, and they stopped a great deal of work. A line of demarcation is the standard phrase. The verb demarcate is far rarer than the noun.

Definitions of demarcation

  1. 1noundemarcationThe marking out of a boundary or a division of responsibility.C2

    “There was no clear demarcation between the two roles.”

Where it comes from

Demarcation begins with one particular line. The word comes from the línea de demarcación the Pope laid down in 1493, dividing the New World between Spain and Portugal a hundred leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands.

  1. Italian

    marcare

  2. Portuguese

    linha de demarcação

  3. Spanish

    línea de demarcación

  4. English, today

    demarcation

Built from

  • marcar · Spanish — to mark

First recorded c.1752, from Spanish línea de demarcación and/or Portuguese linha de demarcação, the demarcation line laid down by the Pope on May 4, 1493, dividing the New World between Spain and Portugal on a line 100 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. Both derive from demarcar, from de- + marcar (“to mark”), from Italian marcare, from the same Germanic root as march.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 26 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

demarcation in the wild

  • The demarcation point varies between countries and has changed over time.

    Demarcation point

  • A network interface device often serves as the demarcation point.

    Demarcation point

  • The military demarcation line (MDL), sometimes referred to as the armistice line, is the effective land border or demarcation line between North Korea and South Korea.

    Military demarcation line

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.