The Collaborative International Dictionary
Hall-mark \Hall"-mark`\ (h[add]l"m[aum]rk`), n.
The official stamp of the Goldsmiths' Company and other assay offices, in the United Kingdom, on gold and silver articles, attesting their purity.
Hence, [figuratively]: A distinguishing characteristic or characteristics; as, a word or phrase lacks the hall-mark of the best writers.
Usage examples of "hall-mark".
COSTUME Colour is the hall-mark of our day, and woman decoratively costumed, and as decorator, will be largely responsible for recording this age as one of distinct importance--a transition period in decoration.
A love vast as ours is penalised, as it were, by this blur, which is the hall-mark of infinity.
A crowd surrounded the hall—a dusty, booted, spurred, shirt-sleeved and sombreroed assemblage that did not wear the hall-mark Shefford had come to associate with Mormons.