If you mark off a piece or length of something, you make it separate, for example by putting a line on it or around it. He used a rope to mark off the circle
put a check mark on or next to; "Please check each name on the list"; "tick off the items"
If a particular quality or feature marks someone or something off from other people or things, it is unusual and makes them obviously different. Her clothes, of course, marked her off from a great number of the delegates at the conference The traditionalist influences within the navy marked it off as a rather old-fashioned institution
[ 'märk ] (noun.) before 12th century. Middle English, from Old English mearc boundary, march, sign; akin to Old High German marha boundary, Latin margo.