What does labeling mean?
Labeling is the act of giving something a label: a written or printed tag, a descriptive name, or a place within a category. It can refer to the physical process of attaching labels to food, products, containers, or specimens, but it also has an important figurative use. To label a person, condition, or idea is to identify or characterize it in a particular way. The term often suggests that a name or category can influence perception, as in discussions of racial, gender, or ideological labeling. In commercial and regulatory settings, labeling refers to the information attached to goods and the rules governing that information. In scientific work, it can describe the systematic marking of samples or materials. The word is especially common in American English, where it is spelled with one "l," while British English generally prefers "labelling."
The act of attaching a label to something or assigning it a name, description, or category.
"The new labeling requirements take effect next month."
The noun is common in commercial, regulatory, scientific, and social contexts.
To attach a label to something or to identify it by a particular name, description, or classification.
"Technicians are labeling each culture according to the date it was collected."
This is the present participle and gerund form of the verb label.
A label may say what something is, but labeling can also decide how people will see it.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does labeling come from?
The word label entered English from Old French label, meaning a strip or piece of material bearing an identification, and developed into both a noun and a verb. Its immediate source was Medieval Latin labellum, a diminutive of Latin labrum, meaning "lip," probably through the idea of a projecting strip or tag. The modern gerund labeling was formed by adding the suffix -ing to the verb label.
Related word forms
How labeling is actually used
In American English, "labeling" is the usual spelling; British English generally uses "labelling." The word is especially common in technical, regulatory, commercial, and scientific contexts. As a gerund, it can function attributively, as in "labeling requirements."
Easily confused with labeling
"Labelling" is the standard British English spelling of the American form "labeling," with the same meaning and related inflected forms.