Checkmark

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A graphical icon utilized to represent verification or endorsement in various tasks and contexts
2. A symbol used to show that something has been verified or approved
3. An emblem that marks an item as correct or completed

Etymology: The word is a plain compound: "check" plus "mark," the second of which is the older, more transparent half. The "mark" element is Old English in origin, while "check" carries the more surprising history. It travels from the Persian "shah," meaning king, through a chess game in which the king is threatened. Medieval Latin "scaccus" and Old French "eschec" passed the term into Middle English as "chek," a shout that a monarch is under attack, and the sense of "checking" a piece on the board later spread to checking and verifying in general. From that chess sense, a check came to mean a mark made to show that something had been examined and found in order, a tick beside a list item or an inspected box. Writing "checkmark" as a single word follows that pattern: the mark is the thing that records the check. The word thus preserves, in its first element, a Persian royal title that once announced the endangered king on a medieval board.

Synonyms: tick, check