label
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "label", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "label" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "label" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
label is aEnglishnoun. It means: A small ticket or sign giving information about something to which it is attached or intended to be attached. Pronounced /ˈleɪ.bəl/. It ranks #3,436 in English word frequency. Often confused with lel and late.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | label |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈleɪ.bəl/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #3,436 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for label is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈleɪ.bəl/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,436 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 13 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for label, with forms such as "albel", "labbel", and "labell". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "lel", "late", "lake", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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”), … Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is label, spelled L-A-B-E-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A small ticket or sign giving information about something to which it is attached or intended to be attached.
- 2A name given to something or someone to categorise them as part of a particular social group.
- 3A company that sells records.
- 4A user-defined alias for a numerical designation, the reverse of an enumeration.
- 5A named place in source code that can be jumped to using a GOTO or equivalent construct.
- 6A charge resembling the strap crossing the horse’s chest from which pendants are hung.
- 7A tassel.
- 8A small strip, especially of paper or parchment (or of some material attached to parchment to carry the seal), but also of iron, brass, land, etc.
- 9A piece of writing added to something, such as a codicil appended to a will.
- 10A brass rule with sights, formerly used with a circumferentor to take altitudes.
- 11The projecting moulding by the sides, and over the tops, of openings in mediaeval architecture.
- 12In mediaeval and later art, a representation of a band or scroll containing an inscription.
- 13A non-interactive control or widget displaying text, often used to describe the purpose of another control.
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”). Cognate with Old High German lappa (“rag, piece of cloth”), Old English læppa (“skirt, flap of a garment”). More at lap.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: albel,labbel,labell,lable,laebl,lbael,llabel
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for label
Misspelling Variants of "label"
Frequency rank: #3,436 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter L in our English index: