label

American  

[lay-buhl] / ˈleɪ bəl /

noun

• labels
  plural

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 1. 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.

   2. 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.

6. 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.

7. Obsolete. a strip or narrow piece of anything.

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verb (used with object)

• labels,
  present (3rd person singular)
• labeled,
  past participle,  past
• labelled,
  past participle,  past (especially British)
• labeling,
  present participle
• labelling
  present participle (especially British)

1. to affix a label to; mark with a label.

   The drawers have all been labeled with their contents.

2. to designate or describe by or on a label.

   The bottle was labeled poison.

3. 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.

4. Chemistry. Also to incorporate a radioactive or heavy isotope into (a molecule) in order to make traceable.

label British  

/ ˈleɪbəl /

noun

1. 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

2. 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

3. a word or phrase heading a piece of text to indicate or summarize its contents

4. a trademark or company or brand name on certain goods, esp, formerly, on gramophone records

5. another name for dripstone

6. 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

7. 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

8. chem a radioactive element used in a compound to trace the mechanism of a chemical reaction

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verb

1. to fasten a label to

2. to mark with a label

3. to describe or classify in a word or phrase

   to label someone a liar

4. to make (one or more atoms in a compound) radioactive, for use in determining the mechanism of a reaction

label Scientific  

/ lā′bəl /

1. See tracer

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• labeler
  noun
• labeller
  noun
• prelabel
  noun
• relabel
  verb (used with object)
• nonlabeling
  adjective
• nonlabelling
  adjective
• unlabeled
  adjective
• unlabelled
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• labels
  plural

Participles

• labeling
  present
• labelling
  present
• labeled
  past
• labelled
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• label
  simple
• labels
  simple
• have labeled
  perfect
• have labelled
  perfect
• has labeled
  perfect
• has labelled
  perfect
• am labeling
  progressive
• am labelling
  progressive
• are labeling
  progressive
• are labelling
  progressive
• is labeling
  progressive
• is labelling
  progressive
• have been labeling
  perfect progressive
• have been labelling
  perfect progressive
• has been labeling
  perfect progressive
• has been labelling
  perfect progressive

Past

• labeled
  simple
• labelled
  simple
• had labeled
  perfect
• had labelled
  perfect
• was labeling
  progressive
• was labelling
  progressive
• were labeling
  progressive
• were labelling
  progressive
• had been labeling
  perfect progressive
• had been labelling
  perfect progressive

Future

• will label
  simple
• will have labeled
  perfect
• will have labelled
  perfect
• will be labeling
  progressive
• will be labelling
  progressive
• will have been labeling
  perfect progressive
• will have been labelling
  perfect progressive

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Etymology

Origin of label

First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English, from Middle French: “ribbon,” perhaps from Germanic; cf. lap ¹

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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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

label labels labeled labelled labeling labelling

"Of course, you can get reputable companies who do third-party testing and make sure that what you see on the label is what is in the inside, but that's not always the case," she says.

From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026

They wrote the album during a rough time personally, as they struggled to get out of a stymied label deal that cost them four years between records.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2026

But the number on the label does not necessarily match the calories your body actually absorbs.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 12, 2026

It might just sound like a new way to call someone an idiot, but the NPC label has much deeper, scarier implications.

From Salon ● Oct. 12, 2026

I made my first batch, and then scooped the batter into one row of my cupcake pan, using blue painter’s tape I found in the junk drawer to label which recipe it was.

From "From the Desk of Zoe Washington" by Janae Marks

The Indian market “continues to enjoy dynamic consumer fundamentals, and sales driven by strong demand and continuing premiumisation,” Pernod said, referring to efforts to focus sales on higher-end and higher-margin labels.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026

On Wednesday, Judge I'Ashea Myles ordered that "anything that was in the actual room needs to be preserved and maintained," including IV lines and syringes, as well as waste, such as packaging, inserts and labels.

From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026

After the backlash, Spotify posted its content moderation rules and said it would add content advisory labels on COVID-related podcasts.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2026

Our job was to sort through the massive mailer box of padded envelopes and bubble mailers that came in from record labels, big, small and in-between.

From Salon ● Oct. 4, 2026

First every kid labels me as a tragic case, now half the teachers'll think I'm a waste of space.

From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell

By commodity trade, Hayes is mainly referring to the memory stocks that have been labeled the picks-and-shovels play of the AI infrastructure boom.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 15, 2026

Mr. Gates is late to the ranks of the warners, whom some have labeled doomers to reduce their warnings to a matter of temperament.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2026

Both Gershkovich and his employer vehemently denied he was a spy and the US State Department labeled him "wrongfully detained."

From Barron's ● Sep. 30, 2026

CNN labeled him a “boy genius” and reported that Microsoft had added the preschooler to its list of security researchers.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2026

Considering the design of this new system of control, it is astonishing that so many people labeled criminals still manage to care for and feed their children, hold together marriages, obtain employment, and start businesses.

From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander

Publishers sign up to the scheme for a fee, and can then request to get their authors' books labelled with the Books By People mark.

From Barron's ● Oct. 9, 2026

"At what point do we need to be aware that it potentially can be damaging to us and our children, and AI should definitely be labelled more."

From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026

"Dad labelled everything, recorded everything and backed it all up to cassette, over and over," he said.

From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026

Earlier this year, when she was a backbench MP and not a government minister, Angela Rayner, herself a former care worker, labelled the proposals "un-British".

From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2026

From eighteen hundred bottles eighteen hundred carefully labelled infants were simultaneously sucking down their pint of pasteurized external secretion.

From "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley

The first-of-its-kind research, published in the journal Nutrition Research, could also help consumers better understand the distinction between different types of trans fats and provide greater clarity around labeling policies that may contribute to confusion.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 8, 2026

“But labeling them ‘fascists’ — when officers put on the uniform every day to keep us safe — is crossing the line,” Bass said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026

Hundreds of posts labeling me misogynistic and bigoted appeared on Cornell’s anonymous chat forums.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026

The FTC’s “Made in USA” Labeling Rule went into effect in 2021, subjecting marketers for the first time to potential civil penalties for inaccurately labeling their products as domestically manufactured.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026

He sent three DNA samples, labeling them as his own, his father’s, and his son’s.

From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Several labelling schemes, including from Britain, France and Germany, were being showcased at the world's biggest book industry fair in Frankfurt this week, where the challenges posed by AI were hotly debated.

From Barron's ● Oct. 9, 2026

And even those who don't like the direction of travel are labelling their opinions as a desire to be helpful, they're not trying to criticise the boss.

From BBC ● Sep. 26, 2026

"We've been labelling clothes, putting Braille in baby books and organising the baby bag so that I know where everything is," he says.

From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026

Some said they would post in exchange for free food and drink, without an extra payment on top - and five of those said they would post without labelling the content as an advert.

From BBC ● Aug. 25, 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

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Related Words

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