label
verb, transitive. To attach a label to something. To assign to a category, especially inaccurately or restrictively. To give a name to something. Also a noun.
Brittany's heart sank as she rounded the corner and looked up the corridor toward her locker. Those girls were gathered nearby, talking among themselves, squealing and laughing as usual. She had tried to ignore the looks they darted at her on previous mornings when she visited her locker near their little club meeting. They made it obvious they didn't want her near; considered her approach an intrusion.
She had to get her chemistry notes for first period. Today was a lab. Brittany raised her head and squared her shoulders. She was visiting her locker, as was her right. Nothing more, nothing less. She determined not to let the looks and whispers of this coterie bother her. Her steps became more deliberate as she neared them.
"Good morning," she stated to the group as a whole when she stopped at locker number fifty-nine. She swept their surprised gazes with her own as she reached for the combination lock.
Brittany was surprised to see their eyes drop or slide sideways after touching hers. Mentally shrugging, she turned to work the combination, then saw the reason. Someone had labelled her locker with a crudely lettered word on a neon green sticker: "GEEK."
Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.
