captionlike

Captionlike is an adjective used to describe text that resembles a caption in function or form. In information design and data annotation, captionlike content provides brief, descriptive information that accompanies an image, figure, diagram, or media object. Unlike longer captions, captionlike text is typically concise, neutral in tone, and aimed at identifying content or summarizing context rather than offering extended analysis.

Stylistically, captionlike text tends to be short, present-tense, and third-person in perspective. It often foregrounds who, what, where, and when, and it may omit elaborate rhetoric or narrative detail. In practice, captionlike fragments are common in image datasets, UX tooltips, and accessibility metadata, where quick identification and clarity are prioritized over stylistic expression. They can function as lightweight alternatives to full captions when space is limited or rapid scanning is required.

Origins and usage trends suggest that captionlike is formed by adding the suffix -like to caption, indicating similarity rather than equivalence. It is used in digital humanities, data science, and user experience design to describe a class of text that plays a captioning role without adopting the full formal structure of traditional captions. The term is generally hyphenated as caption-like in formal writing, but may appear in its closed form as captionlike in technical contexts.

See also: caption, alt text, annotation, metadata, description, label.