mark, a good

Dictionary of Australasian Words Phrases and Usages by Edward E. Morris

Australian slang.


1845. R. Howitt, `Australia,' p. 233:

«I wondered often what was the meaning of this, amongst manyother peculiar colonial phrases, `Is the man a good mark?'I heard it casually from the lips of apparently respectablesettlers, as they rode on the highway, `Such and such a one isa good mark,» – – simply a person who pays his men their wages,without delays or drawbacks; a man to whom you may sellanything safely; for there are in the colony people who areregularly summoned before the magistrates by every servant theyemploy for wages. They seem to like to do everything publicly,legally, and so become notoriously not `good marks.'»

[So also «bad mark,» in the opposite sense.]

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