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Is this called a school badge?

According to Oxford Dictionary

badge: (British English) (North American English patch)

a piece of material that you sew onto clothes as part of a uniform

the school badge

But for some schools, they just print the school logo and school name onto the uniform, rather than having them on a piece of cloth and sewing them to the uniform.

It's a kind of "a printed school badge".

Do we still call it a school badge?

For example, "she has a school uniform with a badge on the front"

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  • the simple answer is "no", native speakers would not say your final example sentence. they would say ..**emblem** or ..**logo** or ..**crest**
    – Fattie
    Commented May 17 at 14:18
  • It doesn't matter how you name it (badge, logo, emblem), the point is that it is printed, not sewn on.
    – Lambie
    Commented May 18 at 13:26
  • Out of context, to my American ear, "school badge" would be significantly more likely to imply some sort of student ID card than a logo. I would strongly prefer "logo", "crest", "emblem", etc. if you're speaking/writing to a general audience, at least below a certain age.
    – Josh Grosso
    Commented May 18 at 16:46

6 Answers 6

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You'd probably get away with "badge", since that is clearly intended to be a cheap alternative to a sewn-on badge. The word "badge" is used for marks and tokens (worn on clothing) rather than the particular technology.

But you could say "logo".

You must wear an official school shirt with the school logo printed on the front.

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19

A 'badge', typically, is something that can be attached to something else - for example, the badge on the front of a vehicle which displays the manufacturer's emblem is often a removable/replaceable item and 'debadging' is a common cosmetic modification to cars.

In the UK, where school uniform is the norm, schools may display their logo (which could also be described as an 'emblem', a 'crest' or sometimes a 'shield', depending on the form it takes) on their uniform. On the blazers/jackets worn by British senior school children, this is typically in the form of a badge (or 'patch' for cloth badges) that is sewn onto the uniform either as part of the manufacturing process or supplied separately to be attached.

What appears in your image is certainly a school logo, but it is not in the form of a badge that has been attached to the garment - it appears to be screen-printed onto it. It could certainly be described as a school 'logo' or 'emblem' but probably not a 'badge'. The shape of the logo is not a 'crest' or 'shield' either.

Note that not all English-speaking countries have school uniforms, so beware of opinion-based answers.

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  • I’m not sure what you mean by not having the right shape to be a crest. Collins defines crest as “ a plume or emblem, formerly worn on a helmet.” or similar, and I sometimes hear the emblems of football teams called their “crest,” including when it is inside a circle.
    – Davislor
    Commented May 17 at 15:12
  • Sorry, what? Private schools often have uniforms in the US. What country doesn't have school uniforms of some type in some of their schools? No country I've been in.
    – Lambie
    Commented May 18 at 13:25
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I would definitely call this a badge. Chambers has "badge: 1 .A mark or emblem showing rank, membership of a society, etc.". A badge does not need to be a separate object, although the word is most commonly used in this context. Insignia is correct but sounds a bit odd. To me logo sounds wrong for a school, but I might be showing my age there. Maybe this is different in AmE.

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  • You are 100% correct that badge can be an abstract (like saying coat of arms or just "symbol" - as in "Jimmy Page's symbol is a shape that looks like the letters zozo" --- but a It would definitely be old-fashioned and/or "professorial" to use badge that way; not so much an AmE/BrE problem as too formal/scholarly
    – Fattie
    Commented May 17 at 14:21
  • @Fattie I don't find it old-fashioned or formal at all; a quick search turned up examples like "all the recent Orion (US) reprints have that horrendous 'Now on Netflix' badge printed on them" and very close to the example in the question "Captain Armband With Your Clubs Badge Printed On"
    – IMSoP
    Commented May 18 at 22:01
  • @Fattie, to add to IMSoP's comment, badge in this context is very idiomatic and definitely current. Insignia would sound too formal, although maybe more precisely correct. Logo applied to a school sounds a bit odd, but I accept that might just me my age.
    – timchessish
    Commented May 20 at 8:05
  • @timchessish and gang - fair enough! I actually agree that logo sounds a bit odd.
    – Fattie
    Commented May 20 at 11:35
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I'd call that an insignia.

Cambridge:

an object or mark that shows that a person belongs to a particular organization or group, or has a particular rank.

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  • 1
    Bt be aware that is rather formal. It would be used in the school's printed documents but no human would say insignia in speech.
    – Fattie
    Commented May 17 at 14:20
  • @Fattie That's fair.
    – the-baby-is-you
    Commented May 17 at 22:09
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That shirt has a badge or logo printed on it, as opposed to being sewn onto it.

Like this:

mrtshirts.co.uk

printed badges or logos

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  • 2
    Very poor quality answer.
    – Astralbee
    Commented May 18 at 19:37
  • @Astralbee Yep, just like the one in the OP's question which has a printed badge on a shirt. Your remarks re school uniforms is really kind of funny. The places I went to school (US, France and Brazil) all had uniforms for kids.
    – Lambie
    Commented May 18 at 20:27
  • The overwhelming majority of 'public' schools in the U.S. do not require uniforms. And sorry to burst your bubble, but France and Brazil are not English-speaking countries.
    – Astralbee
    Commented May 18 at 21:19
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From www.oed.com Badge 1526 – In extended use: any physical object or mark which is used or regarded as a distinguishing sign, emblem, token, or symbol.

In which sense a school logo, however it is applied, would be be a badge.

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  • Don't you think the word "physical" in the definition you quote suggests that to be a badge it must be a tangible item in its own right? Without the shirt, the logo in the OP would be a puddle of ink.
    – Astralbee
    Commented May 19 at 13:51
  • You have me there regarding "physical" however the definition continues and includes any mark, such as the one printed on shirt in the OP's picture. If we're talking about a puddle of ink, we're not talking about the pictured object at the top of this discussion.
    – user2525621
    Commented Jul 19 at 17:01

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