Tagline

How to spell tagline

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce tagline

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does tagline mean?

1. nounA short, memorable phrase used to identify or promote a product, brand, or campaign.
2. nounThe final, clinching line of a joke, scene, or piece of writing.

Tagline in a sentence

• The agency spent weeks crafting a tagline for the new coffee brand.

• The comedian delivered the tagline perfectly and the room erupted.

• Every poster carried the same catchy tagline along the bottom.

• The script's last scene ends on a quiet but powerful tagline.

Where does tagline come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Tagline is a twentieth-century compound built from two much older English words, tag and line. The word 'tag' originally meant a small hanging piece or a label attached to something, and its earliest origins are uncertain, though it likely came from a Scandinavian or Low German source meaning a pointed or dangling scrap. 'Line' descends ultimately from the Latin 'linea', meaning a linen thread or string, which gave the sense of a written row of words. Put together, a tagline first appeared in the theatre and entertainment trades to mean the final, clinching line of a scene or joke, the 'tag' at the end. From the 1920s onward, especially in American advertising, it broadened to mean the short memorable slogan attached to a brand. Because it is simply two everyday words joined with no space, the only real spelling trap is remembering it is written solid rather than as 'tag line'.

How the word is built

• tag (a label or short identifying phrase)
• line (a row of words)