label
Forms
- Plural
- labels
- present (v1)
- label
- 3rd person singular
- labels
Definitions
1.A small ticket or sign giving information about something to which it is attached or intended to be attached.
- We laughed at her because the label was still on her new sweater.
- Although the label priced this poster at three pounds, I got it for two.
- The label says this silk scarf should not be washed in the washing machine.
2.A name given to something or someone to categorise them as part of a particular social group.
- Ever since he started going to the rock club, he's been given the label "waster".
3.A company that sells records.
- The label signed the band after hearing a demo tape.
4.A user-defined alias for a numerical designation, the reverse of an enumeration.
- Storage devices can be given by label or ID.
1.To replace specific atoms by their isotope in order to track the presence or movement of this isotope through a reaction, metabolic pathway or cell.
2.To put a label (a ticket or sign) on (something).
- The shop assistant labeled all the products in the shop.
3.To give (a label) to (someone or something) in order to categorise that person or thing.
- He's been unfairly labeled as a cheat, although he's only ever cheated once.
- And the liberal blogosphere has long labeled Clinton part of the neoconservative wing, a conservative intellectual movement that supports an interventionist foreign policy.
4.To add a detectable substance, either transiently or permanently, to a biological substance in order to track the presence of the label-substance combination either in situ or in vitro
- They may be used to label and image a protein within tissue, to isolate cells on the basis of marker expression, or to physically capture a protein from a complex biological mixture..
Frequency
Overall
Uncommon· #2874
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Uncommon
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Related words
Word family
Etymology
From Middle English label (“narrow band, strip of cloth”), from Old French label, lambel (Modern French lambeau), from Frankish *lappā (“torn piece of cloth”), from Proto-Germanic *lappǭ, *lappô (“cloth stuff, rag, scraps, flap, dewlap, lobe, rabbit ear”), from Proto-Indo-European *leb- (“blade”).