English▸ noun
1 a small piece of paper, fabric, plastic, or similar material attached to an object and giving information about it:
the alcohol content is clearly stated on the label
price labels.
▪ a piece of fabric sewn inside a garment and bearing the brand name, size, or instructions for care:
a garment with the label ‘Laura Ashley’.
▪ the piece of paper in the centre of a record giving the artist and title.
▪ a company that produces recorded music:
independent labels.
▪ the name or trademark of a fashion company:
she plans to launch her own designer clothes label.
2 a classifying phrase or name applied to a person or thing, especially one that is inaccurate or restrictive:
the label ‘salsa’ seems especially meaningless when applied to musicians like Tito Puente.
▪ (in a dictionary entry) a word or words used to specify the subject area, register, or geographical origin of the word being defined:
the italic part-of-speech label follows the pronunciation.
▪ Computing a string of characters used to refer to a particular instruction in a program.
▪ Biology Chemistry a radioactive isotope, fluorescent dye, or enzyme used to make something identifiable for study:
radioactive labels.
3 Heraldry a narrow horizontal strip, typically with three downward projections, that is superimposed on a coat of arms by an eldest son during the life of his father.
▸ verb
( labels)
(, labelling)
(, labelled)
(; US English labels)
(, US English labeling)
(, US English labeled)
[with object] 1 attach a label to (something):
she labelled the parcels neatly, writing the addresses in capital letters.
2 assign to a category, especially inaccurately or restrictively:
many pupils felt that they were labelled as failures
[with object and complement] the critics labelled him a loser.
▪ Biology Chemistry make (a substance, molecule, or cell) identifiable by replacing an atom with one of a distinctive radioactive isotope, or by attaching a fluorescent dye, enzyme, or other molecule:
insulin labelled with iodine-125 was used as a tracer.
– ORIGIN Middle English (denoting a narrow strip): from Old French, ‘ribbon’, probably of Germanic origin and related to lap1.