What does earmark mean?
Word: Earmark
Part of Speech: Verb
Meaning: Earmark means to set aside money, time or things for one particular purpose.
Synonyms: reserve, set aside, assign
How do you spell earmark?
Syllables: ear - mark
Tricky part: It is written as one word, with no space or hyphen, and starts with the body part ear.
Watch out for: eermark, earmarc, eamark
Memory tip: Picture a tag clipped to a cow's ear: the word begins with that ear.
Earmark in a sentence
Example 1: The council has earmarked funds for repairing the village pond.
Example 2: Riya earmarked Saturday morning for finishing her science project.
Example 3: These seats are earmarked for senior citizens.
Fun Fact
The word began on farms: owners cut a small notch in the ears of their sheep or cattle so they could tell which animals were theirs.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Makeup
Choose the correctly spelt compound word:
a) raincoate
b) footbal
c) cupbord
d) earmark
Show answer
d) earmark. The others should be football, cupboard and raincoat.
Word Connection
Choose the synonym of the word:
earmark
a) waste
b) squander
c) forget
d) allocate
Show answer
d) allocate. To allocate money is to set it aside for a use, the same as earmarking it.
Word Cookie
Find the misspelt word in the sentence:
The school has decided to earmarck part of the annual fee for new library books.
a) decided
b) library
c) annual
d) earmarck
Show answer
d) earmarck. Mark ends in a plain k, with no c before it.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. The school earmarked 50,000 pounds for the library. This money ____.
a) must be returned to the parents
b) will be shared among the teachers
c) can be used only for the library
d) can be spent on anything at all
Show answer
c) can be used only for the library
2. Which sentence uses earmark correctly?
a) Mum earmarked the top shelf for my brother's trophies.
b) Mum earmarked the cake into eight equal pieces.
c) Mum earmarked the tap until it stopped leaking.
d) Mum earmarked loudly when the milk boiled over.
Show answer
a) Mum earmarked the top shelf for my brother's trophies.
