tag

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: tăg, IPA^(key): /tæɡ/
• (North American also) IPA^(key): /teɪɡ/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æɡ

Noun

tag (plural tags)

1. (heading) Physical appendage.
   1. A small label.
   2. A skin tag, an excrescence of skin.
   3. A dangling lock of sheep's wool, matted with dung; a dung tag.
   4. Any slight appendage, as to an article of dress; something slight hanging loosely.
   5. A metallic binding, tube, or point, at the end of a string, or lace, to stiffen it.
   6. (biochemistry) Any short peptide sequence artificially attached to proteins mostly in order to help purify, solubilize or visualize these proteins.
   7. Something mean and paltry; the rabble, originally refer to rag as torn cloth.
      • 1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […] (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: […] Society of Stationers, […] Hibernia Press, […] [b]y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC:

        For upon the like Proclamation there, they all came in, both tag and rag

2. (heading) Last nonphysical appendage.
   1. (music) The last line (or last two lines) of a song's chorus that is repeated to indicate the end of the song.
   2. (television) The last scene of a TV program, often focusing on the program's subplot.

      Antonym: cold open

      • 2006, Stephen V. Duncan, A Guide to Screenwriting Success, page 300:

        Often, the tag punctuates the "we're all in this together" theme and is topped with a laugh.

   3. The end, or catchword, of an actor's speech; cue.
3. (heading) Nonphysical label.
   1. (informal, authorship) An attribution in narrated dialogue (eg, "he said") or attributed words (e.g. "he thought").

      Synonyms: dialogue tag, speech tag, tag line

      • (Can we date this quote?), michael, alt.fiction.original‎ (Usenet):

        Seems here like Russ would be speaking. You could use a tag here.

      • (Can we date this quote?), Jane MacDonald, alt.fiction.original‎ (Usenet):

        If you want to start with talk, stick a tag in right away

      • (Can we date this quote?), bart_...@hotmail.com, alt.fiction.original‎ (Usenet):

        You could combine these two paragraphs, I think, and rewrite to lose the tag portion of the third sentence.

   2. (computing) A piece of markup representing an element in a markup language.

      The <title> tag provides a title for the Web page.

      The <sarcasm> tag conveys sarcasm in Internet slang.

   4. (computing) A keyword, term, or phrase associated with or assigned to data, media, and/or information enabling keyword-based classification; often used to categorize content.

      I want to add genre and artist tags to the files in my music collection.

4. (heading) Identity.
   1. (chiefly US) A vehicle number plate; a medal bearing identification data (animals, soldiers).

      The subwoofer in the trunk was so loud, it vibrated the tag like an aluminum can.

   2. (slang) A person's name.

      What’s your tag?

5. (heading) Involving being tagged physically.
   2. (uncountable) A game, especially for children on playgrounds, in which one player (known as "it") attempts to touch another, who then becomes "it"; any similar game of chasing and trying to reach, touch, shoot, or label other players.

      Synonym: (Australia) tips

      Hyponyms: archery tag, dart tag, freeze tag, laser tag, zombie tag

   3. (baseball) An instance of touching the baserunner with the ball or the ball in a gloved hand to rule him "out."

      The tag was applied at second for the final out.

6. (heading) Signature.
   1. Graffiti in the form of a stylized signature particular to the artist.
      • 2011, Scape Martinez, Graff 2: Next Level Graffiti Techniques, page 124:

        There is a hierarchy of sorts: a throw-up can go over a tag, a piece over a throw-up, and a burner over a piece.

7. A type of cardboard.
8. A sheep in its first year.
   • 1807, The Complete Farmer, or, General Dictionary of Agriculture and Husbandry, →OCLC:

     After being weaned, the ram or wedder lamb is sometimes termed hog, hoggit, or tag, during the whole of the first year

Verb

tag (third-person singular simple present tags, present participle tagging, simple past and past participle tagged)

1. (transitive) To label (something).
2. (transitive) To mark (something) with one's graffiti tag.
3. (transitive) To remove dung tags from a sheep.

   Regularly tag the rear ends of your sheep.

4. (transitive, baseball, colloquial) To hit the ball hard.

   He really tagged that ball.

5. (transitive, vulgar, slang, 1990s) to have sex with someone (especially a man of a woman)

   Steve is dying to tag Angie from chemistry class.

6. (transitive, baseball) 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. (transitive, computing) To mark with a tag (metadata for classification).

   Antonym: untag

   I am tagging my music files by artist and genre.

8. (transitive, Internet) To attach the name of (a user) to a posted message so that they are linked from the post and possibly sent a notification.
   • 2021, Julie B. Wiest, Theorizing Criminality and Policing in the Digital Media Age, page 82:

     One side wants to demonstrate a higher level of street knowledge and openly denounces the distorting lens of Instagram dissings; the other embraces the medium's branding affordances by sending “clout” to a third-party ally, while at the same time avoiding tagging the opponent.

9. To follow closely, accompany, tag along.
   • 1906 April, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “By Courier”, in The Four Million, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co, →OCLC:

     A tall young man came striding through the park along the path near which she sat. Behind him tagged a boy carrying a suit-case.

10. (transitive) To catch and touch (a player in the game of tag).
11. (transitive) To fit with, or as if with, a tag or tags.
    • 1911, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Bunyan, John”, in 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica‎:

      He learned to make long-tagged thread laces.

    • 1693, Decimus Junius Juvenalis, John Dryden, transl., “[The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis.] The Eighth Satyr”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. […] Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC:

      His courteous host […] / Tags every sentence with some fawning word.

12. To fasten; to attach.
    • a. 1751, Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, an essay

      they began to tag their law with the scraps of philofophy

Noun

tag (plural tagin)

1. A decoration drawn over some Hebrew letters in Jewish scrolls.

Declension

Related terms

• gabüarttag

Derived terms

• knauen tag

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /taːˀɣ/, [ˈtˢæˀ(j)]

Noun

tag n (singular definite taget, plural indefinite tage)

1. roof

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ta(ːˀ)ɣ/, [ˈtˢæˀ(j)], [ˈtˢɑw]

Noun

tag n (singular definite taget, plural indefinite tag)

1. hold, grasp, grip
2. stroke (with an oar or with the armes in the water)
3. handling, control

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /taɡ/, [ˈtˢæɡ̊]

Noun

tag n (singular definite tagget, plural indefinite tags)

1. tag (signature of a graffiti artist)
2. (computing) tag (markup in an electronic file)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ta(ːˀ)/, [ˈtˢæ(ˀ)]

Verb

tag

1. imperative of tage

Declension