HIGHLIGHTER

noun (Lifestyle and Leisure) A marker which overlays a printed or written word with a semi-transparent, usually fluorescent, line of colour, leaving it legible but emphasized in the text. Etymology: Derived from the verb to highlight in the sense 'to make prominent, to draw attention to', by adding the agent suffix -er. Originally the word was in the respelt form Hi-liter, a US trade mark. History and Usage: The trade mark was registered in the mid sixties in the US, and by the mid seventies the word in its standard spelling was catching on as a generic term. Highlighters in a very wide range of fluorescent colours became available and proved popular for all sorts of business uses from marking important activities and engagements in one's Filofax to picking out new words and senses in printed sources for lexicographers. The verb highlight was reinvented as a back-formation in the sense 'to mark with a highlighter'; other derivatives include highlighting as a verbal noun. Simply find the hidden words...and then circle or highlight them. Country Walking Jan. 1990, p. 16 'Bring me,' she cried, 'a highlighter.' She tinted the discrepancies between her text and the solicitor's in feverish, fluorescent yellow. Observer Magazine 25 Mar. 1990, p. 42