label
Americannoun
-
a slip of paper, cloth, or other material, marked or inscribed, for attachment to something to indicate its manufacturer, nature, ownership, destination, etc..
The medicine bottle should have a label on it with the dosing instructions.
-
a short word or phrase descriptive of a person, group, intellectual movement, etc..
The label “progressive” can be used to describe many different political movements.
-
a word or phrase indicating that what follows belongs in a particular category or classification.
The label “Formal” marks words used in academic or business contexts.
-
Architecture. a molding or dripstone over a door or window, especially one that extends horizontally across the top of the opening and vertically downward for a certain distance at the sides.
-
-
a brand or trademark under which something, such as clothing or music, is manufactured and sold.
She records under her own label.
Chanel has launched a new label for ready-to-wear couture.
-
the manufacturer using such a label.
All the big-name labels will have a runway show during Fashion Week.
Major labels are feeling the economic crunch and are no longer signing small acts or individual musicians.
-
-
Heraldry. a narrow horizontal strip with a number of downward extensions of rectangular or dovetail form, usually placed in chief as the cadency mark of an eldest son.
-
Obsolete. a strip or narrow piece of anything.
verb (used with object)
-
to affix a label to; mark with a label.
The drawers have all been labeled with their contents.
-
to designate or describe by or on a label.
The bottle was labeled poison.
-
to put in a certain class; classify.
It's easy to label someone as difficult and stop trying, but curiosity and compassion can often get you further.
-
Chemistry. Also to incorporate a radioactive or heavy isotope into (a molecule) in order to make traceable.
noun
-
a piece of paper, card, or other material attached to an object to identify it or give instructions or details concerning its ownership, use, nature, destination, etc; tag
-
a brief descriptive phrase or term given to a person, group, school of thought, etc
the label "Romantic" is applied to many different kinds of poetry
-
a word or phrase heading a piece of text to indicate or summarize its contents
-
a trademark or company or brand name on certain goods, esp, formerly, on gramophone records
-
another name for dripstone
-
heraldry a charge consisting of a horizontal line across the chief of a shield with three or more pendants: the charge of an eldest son
-
computing a group of characters, such as a number or a word, appended to a particular statement in a program to allow its unique identification
-
chem a radioactive element used in a compound to trace the mechanism of a chemical reaction
verb
-
to fasten a label to
-
to mark with a label
-
to describe or classify in a word or phrase
to label someone a liar
-
to make (one or more atoms in a compound) radioactive, for use in determining the mechanism of a reaction
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
-
labelernoun
-
labellernoun
-
prelabelnoun
-
relabelverb (used with object)
-
nonlabelingadjective
-
nonlabellingadjective
-
unlabeledadjective
-
unlabelledadjective
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
labelsimple
-
labelssimple
-
have labeledperfect
-
have labelledperfect
-
has labeledperfect
-
has labelledperfect
-
am labelingprogressive
-
am labellingprogressive
-
are labelingprogressive
-
are labellingprogressive
-
is labelingprogressive
-
is labellingprogressive
-
have been labelingperfect progressive
-
have been labellingperfect progressive
-
has been labelingperfect progressive
-
has been labellingperfect progressive
Past
-
labeledsimple
-
labelledsimple
-
had labeledperfect
-
had labelledperfect
-
was labelingprogressive
-
was labellingprogressive
-
were labelingprogressive
-
were labellingprogressive
-
had been labelingperfect progressive
-
had been labellingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of label
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English, from Middle French: “ribbon,” perhaps from Germanic; cf. lap 1
Explanation
The saying “labels are for jars not people” means it’s OK to put a description on a jar so you know what’s inside (a label), but it’s not okay to judge people by attaching a label, or description to them, such as "nerd," "jock," or "burnout." Label is a busy word. It refers to the paper or identifying marks on a jar that tells you something about what’s inside the jar. Put such an identifier on the jar, and you label it. Related to that is a judgment about someone or something, a label. When you call yourself a superstar, you label yourself. Finally, you can use label as a short form of recording label, a company that produces musical recordings.
Vocabulary lists containing label
Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Talk Like Shakespeare Day, List 1
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
Common Five-letter Words for Wordle, List 5
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
A few people pulled muscles while straining to label him a “lion of the Senate.”
From Salon ● Jul. 14, 2026
He named his characters after the top executives at his record label, Liberty Records.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
Leibovich wrote: “That was the race in which McCain claimed that he never embraced the ‘maverick’ label, and people were asking, ‘What happened to John McCain?’
From Slate ● Jul. 13, 2026
"My whole life is a dream," he added, describing signing with the Decca Classics record label as "the honour of a lifetime".
From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026
And now Charlie noticed that every single button had a tiny printed label beside it telling you which room you would be taken to if you pressed it.
From "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl
A gift from my brother brought me back to the days when 45 rpm record labels were like old friends.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026
This strict reliance on limited, private labels is exactly what keeps Aldi's overheads low, according to Dustin York, an associate professor of communication at Maryville University.
From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2026
Maybe the pantry has an easier time earning our affection because it sits there so beautifully, all jars and tins and labels facing forward.
From Salon ● Jul. 11, 2026
"These labels will provide an immediately understandable and easily scalable approach to transparency."
From Barron's ● Jul. 10, 2026
I took the sealed rectangles and turned them over to read the hand-printed labels.
From "Summer of the Mariposas" by Guadalupe García McCall
Neatly labeled drawers hold hand fans, plastic snakes, buttons, buckles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026
These numbers are labeled NIM on the table.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 12, 2026
It was a shift to what the party labeled, oxymoronically, a “socialist-oriented market economy.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026
The court has labeled capital punishment cases only since the October 2017 term.
From Salon ● Jul. 3, 2026
The remaining papers had to be “grouped, described, labeled, indexed, and reverently dispatched to their sealed tombs in the government vaults.”
From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has apologised after remarks he made about Kylie Minogue were labelled 'disrespectful'
From BBC ● Jul. 6, 2026
On one production line, investigators found the same large trays of doner meat being emptied into two different packets to go to shops - one labelled as "70% lamb" and one labelled as "50% lamb".
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
Kismet Kebabs advertised and labelled its lamb doner kebabs as being made with up to 87% lamb – depending on the kebab.
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
The team labelled up to half the data for the AI, teaching it "this is gibbon, this is not", said Ratha Sor.
From Barron's ● Jun. 25, 2026
It is a movement often labelled Romanticism, although, like the terms ‘Renaissance’, ‘Baroque’ and ‘Classical’, it presents considerable difficulties when applied to music.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
He considers the Nutri-Score labeling system he created and apps like Yuka and Open Food Facts to be allies.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
The Digital Media Association, the music-streaming-platform trade association that represents companies including Spotify and Apple, said it is tracking the labeling announcement and looks forward to getting more detailed and accurate AI metadata on tracks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
Clark’s family is currently requesting funds to return her remains to California, labeling the death as “a completely bizarre accident.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 6, 2026
That means restoring mandatory country-of-origin labeling so consumers know where their beef actually comes from.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 30, 2026
The American Beverage Association had promised to improve the clarity of its ingredient labeling.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
The announcement comes after North Korea has repeatedly spurned South Korean President Lee Jae Myung's dovish overtures, labelling Seoul its "most hostile" enemy and declaring itself an "irreversible" nuclear state.
From Barron's ● Jul. 10, 2026
In briefings to local media, government sources have been more critical, labelling the rumours "wild speculation" -- in German, "wueste Spekulation", a word play seen as a veiled dig at Merz's potential challenger, Wuest.
From Barron's ● May 29, 2026
Our 10 Year Health Plan commitment to alcohol labelling to provide better health and nutritional information is a crucial step in supporting people to make healthier choices.
From BBC ● May 11, 2026
National Trading Standards told the BBC that fish being sold under the wrong name was a "food labelling issue".
From BBC ● Apr. 30, 2026
In a nutshell, the problem with labelling anything ‘Romantic’ is that it has subsequently come to mean virtually anything, from the poetry of Lord Byron to the songs of Taylor Swift.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
