tag
- 1A small label attached to an item, typically showing information such as a price, name, or instructions.
Check the tag inside the collar for the washing instructions.
Each plant at the nursery had a tag listing its species and care needs.
UsageCommon compounds: price tag, name tag, luggage tag.
- 2A playground game in which one player, known as 'it,' chases the others and tries to touch one of them, who then becomes 'it' in turn.
A game of tag broke out on the playground during recess.
After dinner, the cousins organized a huge round of tag across the entire campsite.
UsageYou play tag or join a game of tag, with no a before tag.
Note
The name of the game shifts by region: what many speakers call tag is tig or it in different parts of Britain and chasey or tips in Australia. The wider sense takes in any chasing game where players are touched, shot or labeled.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- The game is called tig or it in different parts of Britain. en.wikipedia.org
- The game is called chasey or tips in Australia. en.wikipedia.org
- 3A keyword or short phrase assigned to digital content, such as a photo or article, that classifies it and makes it easier to search.
The blog post carried tags for both 'recipes' and 'budget cooking.'
Adding a location tag helps the app group your photos by place.
Note
A keyword hung on a file, post or photo so it can be found again. Genre and artist tags on music files are the everyday case. Unlike the markup tag, which is code, this tag is a description that a person or program chooses.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Metadata tags describe digital items and help users find them again. en.wikipedia.org
- Music files commonly contain artist and genre metadata. id3.org
- Markup tags form part of markup code. developer.mozilla.org
- Descriptive tags can be assigned by people or software. docs.digikam.org
- 4To assign a keyword or classifying label to a piece of digital content or data.
Librarians tag each scanned document with subject keywords.
The app automatically tags uploaded songs by genre.
UsageYou tag something with a keyword, or by category: tag songs by genre.
Similarlabel, categorize, classify, index
Oppositeuntag
- 5To attach a user's name to an online post or photo, linking their profile and often sending them a notification.
Please don't tag me in pictures from the party.
He tagged three coworkers in his announcement about the new job.
UsageYou tag someone in a post or photo.
Oppositeuntag
Note
Social media's version of labeling something is aimed at a person: the name becomes a link, and that person is usually notified. Its etiquette is about consent, because naming people can draw their own followers' attention to the post. That is why people ask friends to leave them out of party pictures.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- Tagging a person can turn their name into a link to their profile. en.wikipedia.org
- A tagged person ordinarily receives a notification. en.wikipedia.org
- Tagging can expose a post to the tagged person's social connections. en.wikipedia.org
- Consent is a consideration when sharing identifiable photos online. esafety.gov.au
- Privacy concerns can motivate requests to remove unwanted party photos. saferschoolies.qld.gov.au
- 6A vehicle's license plate, or a small metal plate carrying identifying information, such as a soldier's or pet's ID medal.
His tag had expired, so he renewed his registration at the DMV.
A neighbor found our lost dog and called the number engraved on its tag.
UsageAmericans renew their tags; elsewhere, number plate or license plate is clearer for a car.
Similarplate
Note
American English stretches the word to cover the plate on a car, and sometimes the registration sticker attached to it. The word also covers small metal identity plates, such as the dog tags soldiers wear or the disc on a pet's collar.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Soldiers wear small metal identification plates called dog tags. army.mil
- Pets can wear metal identification tags on their collars. en.wikipedia.org
- 7To attach a tag or label to something, or to mark it as being of a particular kind, as if with a label.
Researchers tag migrating birds to track their routes.
The rancher tagged each new calf's ear so he could tell them apart.
Note
Fitting something with a tag has long worked both literally and figuratively. Macaulay's Britannica article on Bunyan, written before his death in 1859, describes him making thread laces with long stiffened metal tips. George Stepney's eighth satire in Dryden's Juvenal (1692) shows the figurative use: a courteous host who "tags every sentence with some fawning word," adding words to speech as one would add tips to laces. Modern use extends it to tracking birds.
- 8A piece of markup code representing an element in a markup language such as HTML or XML.
The validator flagged an unclosed tag in the document's header.
HTML tags usually come in pairs, with an opening and a closing form.
Note
Markup's basic boundary marker is a name in angle brackets, such as <title>, that shows where an element begins. A matching closing form shows where it ends, and opening forms can carry attributes. Strictly, a tag is not the element itself: the element is usually the pair of markers plus what they enclose. Internet users borrow the format for jokes, as in a mock <sarcasm> wrapper around a remark.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Tags use angle brackets to mark element boundaries; a matching closing tag marks the end where one is used. html.spec.whatwg.org
- Opening tags can carry attributes. html.spec.whatwg.org
- The tag–element distinction is correct, but paired tags are not universal. XML permits empty-element tags; HTML void elements have no closing tag, and certain HTML tags may be omitted. w3.org
- Internet users imitate markup tags to mark sarcastic remarks. en.wikipedia.org
- 9To follow closely or go along with someone; to accompany.
A few reporters tagged along on the senator's bus tour.
Stray dogs would tag after the soldiers from camp to camp.
UsageUsually tag along or tag after: can I tag along?
Note
The picture is of something trailing behind, like the small hanging piece of cloth in the word's Middle English origin. O. Henry used it bare in his story By Courier, with a boy carrying a suitcase trailing behind a striding young man.
- 10A graffiti artist's stylized signature, written quickly in a form unique to that artist.
The same looping tag showed up on freight cars across three states.
City crews painted over dozens of tags under the highway overpass.
Similarsignature
Note
This is the bottom rung of graffiti's ladder of prestige. Scape Martinez's Graff 2 (2011) sets out the order: a throw-up can go over a tag, a piece over a throw-up, and a burner over a piece. Covering more elaborate work with a quick signature therefore breaks the code. People inside the culture call the makers writers, and the matching verb is marking a surface this way.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Scape Martinez wrote Graff 2. penguinrandomhouse.com
- Graff 2 was first published in 2011; its first-edition copyright page confirms the year. everand.com
- Martinez describes a hierarchy with tags below throw-ups, pieces and burners, in that order. en.wiktionary.org
- Putting a tag over more elaborate graffiti violates the customary hierarchy. en.wikipedia.org
Less common meanings
- 11
- 12To mark a wall, train, or other surface with one's graffiti signature.
Vandals tagged the new mural within a week of its unveiling.
He refused to tag churches, no matter how visible the wall.
Similardeface
- 13In baseball, to put a runner out by touching the runner with the ball or with a gloved hand holding the ball.
The first baseman tagged the runner as he dove back to the bag.
Fielders sometimes fake a throw, then tag the runner who strays off base.
UsageThe object is the runner: tag the runner, tag him out.
Note
It is the playground game moved onto the diamond, a chase decided by a touch. The difference is that the touch must be made with the ball or with the hand or glove holding it.
- 14In baseball, an act of touching a baserunner with the ball, or with the glove holding the ball, in order to put the runner out.
The shortstop applied the tag a split second too late.
Replay review confirmed the tag on the sliding runner.
UsageGoes with apply: the shortstop applied the tag.
Note
It usually counts only when the runner is off the base and the ball is securely held, in the bare hand or in the glove.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- The fielder must hold the ball securely in the hand or glove. content.mlb.com
- 15
- 16A small benign growth of skin that hangs loosely from the body's surface.
A tag had formed under his arm where the skin rubbed.
She asked the dermatologist whether the tag was anything to worry about.
UsageMost often called a skin tag.
- 17
- 18To fasten or attach one thing onto another.
The band tagged a slow version of the chorus onto the end of the song.
At the last minute, the city tried to tag a new fee onto everyone's water bill.
UsageOften tag something onto something else, or tag on: a fee tagged onto the bill.
Similarattach, fasten, fix, secure
Note
An older fastening sense, which can carry scorn for what gets attached. Bolingbroke, writing before 1751, says that they "began to tag their law with the scraps of philosophy," pieces tacked on rather than built in. Used this way, tag suggests attaching something loosely or for show.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Tag has an older fastening or attaching sense. en.wiktionary.org
- Bolingbroke wrote the quoted words before 1751. en.wiktionary.org
- 19The final scene of a television program, frequently revisiting a subplot after the main story concludes.
Writers used the tag to wrap up the romance running beneath the main plot.
The show's tag teased what next week's episode might bring.
Note
Television's closing beat, the counterpart of the cold open or teaser that starts an episode. It comes after the main conflict is settled, is usually light, and often returns to a subplot or running gag. Stephen V. Duncan's A Guide to Screenwriting Success (2006) says it often punctuates the episode's theme and is topped with a laugh. Writers sometimes call it a coda.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Stephen V. Duncan wrote A Guide to Screenwriting Success. openlibrary.org
- Duncan says the tag often punctuates a theme and ends with a laugh. en.wiktionary.org
- 20A short attribution in narrated dialogue that identifies the speaker or thinker, such as "he said" or "she thought."
An editor advised her to vary the dialogue tag rather than repeat "said."
He stripped out the heavy tags so the conversation moved faster.
UsageOften in full: dialogue tag or speech tag.
Similarattribution
- 21The final line, or last two lines, of a song's chorus, repeated to mark the song's ending.
The choir held the last note of the tag for several beats.
She added an extra tag to stretch the closing of the ballad.
Similarcoda
- 22A small metal tube or point fitted to the end of a lace or cord to keep it stiff and prevent fraying.
Once the plastic tag on a lace cracks, threading it through the eyelets becomes a chore.
In Tudor times, laces for sleeves and doublets were finished with metal tags so they could be pushed through the eyelets.
Similaraglet
- 23To hit the ball hard, as in baseball.
Power hitters love to tag the first pitch over the left field wall.
He tagged a fastball into the upper deck.
Note
It describes how hard the ball was struck, not where it went, so a screaming line drive and a long fly both count. In the field the same verb means putting a runner out by touch, so context decides which is meant.
- 24A vulgar slang term meaning to have sex with someone, especially said of a man in relation to a woman.
He claimed he could tag any woman in the room.
Word got around that he had tagged half the office.
Similarbed
Note
This is crude slang from the 1990s, best kept out of any conversation where respect matters. It is typically a man's boast about a woman, and it treats her as a conquest, almost like a mark collected. Readers meet it in dialogue that voices teenage or male bravado. Using it yourself signals contempt as much as informality.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- The sexual slang sense dates from the 1990s. en.wiktionary.org
- 25
- 26A short peptide sequence deliberately attached to a protein to help purify, dissolve, or visualize it.
- 27The final words, or catchword, of an actor's speech, used as a cue for the next line.
- 28A heavy, stiff grade of cardboard, used for tickets, labels, and signs.
- 29A clump of a sheep's wool hanging loose and clotted with dung.
- 30Something cheap and worthless, or the lowest class of people, as in ragtag.
- 31A young sheep less than a year old.
- 32To cut away the dung-matted clumps of wool from a sheep's rear.
- 33A small crownlike stroke written above certain Hebrew letters in Torah scrolls and other sacred texts, especially in the scribal style called Stam.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
Middle English tagge meant a small piece hanging from a garment. It probably came from a North Germanic language and is related to Norwegian tagg ("point, prong, barb"), Swedish tagg ("thorn, prickle") and Icelandic tág ("a willow-twig").