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tag

/tæɡ/noun, verb

tag is spelled T-A-G: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 28 times per million words in written English, the 3,364th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, tag means “A small label” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of tag is tags or tagin.

How many letters and syllables are in tag?

Letters3: T-A-G
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing28 times per million words; the 3,364th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is tag?

Tag appears 28 times per million words in written English, the 3,364th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce tag?

  • US /tæɡ/
  • British /taɡ/
  • Australia /tæːɡ/

Tag has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-stag.ogg, En-au-tag.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with tag?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as tag from its last stressed vowel (/æɡ/):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: gta, gat.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of tag

  • tags plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • tagging participle, present
  • tagged participle, past
  • tagin plural
  • tagim plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does tag mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    A small label.

    He has a tag hung on his bag.

  2. 2

    A skin tag, an excrescence of skin.

  3. 3

    A dangling lock of sheep's wool, matted with dung; a dung tag.

  4. 4

    Any slight appendage, as to an article of dress; something slight hanging loosely.

  5. 5

    A metallic binding, tube, or point, at the end of a string, or lace, to stiffen it.

  6. 6

    Any short peptide sequence artificially attached to proteins mostly in order to help purify, solubilize or visualize these proteins.

  7. 7

    Something mean and paltry; the rabble, originally refer to rag as torn cloth.

  8. 8

    The last line (or last two lines) of a song's chorus that is repeated to indicate the end of the song.

  9. 9

    A decoration drawn over some Hebrew letters in Jewish scrolls, especially in Stam style.

verb

  1. 1

    To label (something).

  2. 2

    To mark (something) with one's graffiti tag.

  3. 3

    To remove dung tags from a sheep.

    Regularly tag the rear ends of your sheep.

  4. 4

    colloquialTo hit the ball hard.

    He really tagged that ball.

  5. 5

    slangvulgarto have sex with someone (especially a man of a woman)

    Steve is dying to tag Angie from chemistry class.

  6. 6

    To put a runner out by touching them with the ball or the ball in a gloved hand.

    He tagged the runner for the out.

  7. 7

    To mark with a tag (metadata for classification).

    I am tagging my music files by artist and genre.

  8. 8

    To attach the name of (a user) to a posted message so that they are linked from the post and possibly sent a notification.

adjective

as TAG
  1. 1

    Tight (inclined to play only strong starting hands and fold otherwise) and aggressive (inclined to raise often).

noun

as TAG
  1. 1

    Initialism of tree-adjoining grammar.

  2. 2

    Acronym of touch and go.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Tag in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchétiquette (small label), chat, loup (game), balise (computing: element in a markup language), attribut (computing: keyword, term, or phrase associated…), étiqueter (to label)
GermanEtikett, Marke, Anhänger, Schildchen (small label), Fangen, Fangspiel (game)
Portugueseetiqueta (small label), pega-pega, apanhada (game), tag (type of graffiti), marcar (to attach the name of a user so that they are…)
Spanishetiqueta, marbete, rótulo, rotulata, marchamo (small label), pilla pilla (game)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does tag come from?

From Middle English tagge (“small piece hanging from a garment”), probably of North Germanic origin. Compare Norwegian tagg (“point; prong; barb; tag”), Swedish tagg (“thorn; prickle; tine”), Icelandic tág (“a willow-twig”). Compare also tack.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after tag