name used in the West for the currency of the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany), 1948, from German Ost "east" (see east) + Mark, name of a unit of currency (see mark (n.2)).
Entries linking to ostmark
east
Old English east, eastan (adj., adv.) "east, easterly, eastward;" easte (n.), from Proto-Germanic *aust- "east," literally "toward the sunrise" (source also of Old Frisian ast "east," aster "eastward," Dutch oost Old Saxon ost, Old High German ostan, German Ost, Old Norse austr "from the east"), from PIE root *aus- (1) "to shine," especially of the dawn. The east is the direction in which dawn breaks. For theory of shift in the geographical sense in Latin, see austral.
As one of the four cardinal points of the compass, from c. 1200. Meaning "the eastern part of the world" (from Europe) is from c. 1300. Cold War use of East for "communist states" first recorded 1951. French est, Spanish este are borrowings from Middle English, originally nautical. The east wind in Biblical Palestine was scorching and destructive (as in Ezekiel xvii.10); in New England it is bleak, wet, unhealthful. East End of London so called by 1846; East Side of Manhattan so called from 1871; East Indies (India and Southeast Asia) so called 1590s to distinguish them from the West Indies.
mark n.2
"unit of money or weight," late Old English marc, a unit of weight (chiefly for gold or silver) equal to about eight ounces, probably from Old Norse mörk "unit of weight," cognate with German Mark and probably ultimately a derivative of mark (n.1), perhaps in a sense of "imprinted weight or coin." It was a unit of account in England into 18c., perhaps originally introduced by the Danes, but never the name of a particular coin.
The word is found in all the Germanic and Romanic languages (compare Old Frisian merk, Dutch mark, Medieval Latin marca, French marc (11c.), Spanish and Italian marco); in English it was used from 18c. in reference to various continental coinages, especially the silver money of Germany first issued 1875.