Other forms: tags, tagged, tagging
A tag is the small label attached to a thing — the price tag on a jumper, the itchy one inside a T-shirt collar, the metal disc on a dog's collar with a phone number stamped into it. It hangs off the object instead of being part of it.
Tag is also the chasing game: one child is 'it', touches somebody, and now that person is it. The verb covers both — you tag a suitcase with your name, and you tag the runner in front of you. Online, to tag someone is to attach their name to a photo or a post so that it reaches them. A graffiti writer's quick spray-painted signature is a tag as well. And to tag along is to go somewhere with people who did not exactly invite you.
1nounsmallA small label attached to something, showing a price, a name or an instruction.
“Leave the tag on the dress in case you want to return it.”
synonyms: label
2nountagA chasing game in which the player who is 'it' touches another, who then becomes 'it'.
“They played tag on the grass until it got dark.”
3verbonlineTo attach a label to something, or to attach a person's name to an online post.
“She tagged all three of us in the photograph from the wedding.”
4noungraffitiA graffiti writer's quick painted signature.
“The same tag is sprayed on every bridge along the canal.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
tag is a label.
Tag begins as Middle English tagge, 'a small piece hanging from a garment', and the family it belongs to is Scandinavian: Norwegian tagg means a point, a prong, a barb, Swedish tagg a thorn, Icelandic tág a willow twig. So the first tag was a dangling shred or a sharp little spike — the price label came a long way afterwards.
Middle English
tagge — small piece hanging from a garment
English, today
tag
From Middle English tagge (“small piece hanging from a garment”), probably of gmq origin. Compare Norwegian tagg (“point; prong; barb; tag”), Swedish tagg (“thorn; prickle; tine”), Icelandic tág (“a willow-twig”). Compare also tack.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA