mother's mark

She will never be quite up to her dear mother's mark.

The cutaneous nævus, “mother's mark,” or “port-wine stain,” consists of an aggregation of dilated capillaries in the substance of the skin.

The same name is sometimes given to the two manifestations; thus in France a pregnant longing is an envie, while a mother's mark on the child is also called an envie, because it is supposed to be due to the mother's unsatisfied longing.

I heard him say he would impress a painted piece of paper on the child's back, so as to leave a mark, and swear it was a mother's mark, graven by the hands of the Almighty.

The Romance of the Violet, by Gerbert de Montruil, circa 1225, derives its name from the mother’s mark of the heroine, which causes her husband to lose his bet.