label

noun

• 1a 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

• 2a 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.

• 4 Architectureanother term for dripstone.

verb (labels, labelling, labelled; US labels, labeling, labeled)

• 1attach a label to (something): she labelled the parcels neatly, writing the addresses in capital letters
• 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

• 2 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