laundry mark

• laundry-mark

laundry mark (plural laundry marks)

1. (historical) An identifying marking, usually in coded form and handwritten in indelible ink on an inconspicuous area of a garment, widely used until the mid-20th century as an organizing aid by merchants who cleaned and pressed clothing.
   • 1888 December 5, “Black Bart, the Highwayman”, in Montreal Herald, retrieved 4 Jan. 2010, page 6:

     One of his shirt cuffs . . . bore a laundry mark, and the detectives finally located the laundry in this city.

   • 1909, Mary Roberts Rinehart, “Numbers Seven and Nine”, in The Man in Lower Ten, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC, page 50:

     The suit-case gave no clue. It contained one empty leather-covered flask and a pint bottle, also empty, a change of linen and some collars with the laundry mark, S. H.

   • 2008 August 9, Burle Pettit, “When you get right down to it, life is a numbers game”, in Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, retrieved 4 Jan. 2010:

     Some of the numbers I remember had become useless information until the computer age brought forth the frequent necessity of thinking up passwords. . . . [W]hen at least one letter is required, I type in my army laundry mark, which is my last initial and the final four digits of my serial number.

• laundry list