What is the name for the plastic tip on the end of shoelaces? | Notes and Queries

What is the name for the plastic tip on the end of shoelaces?

RLJS, Anaheim, USA

• An aglet.

  Hugo van Kemenade, York

• Aglet.

  Karl Tiedemann, New York

• They're called aglets, but why we need a name for them I have no idea. Surely, the creative energies responsible would have been better off coming up with a name for the inside of the elbow, or for the middle three toes.

  Jenny, Crawley

• The OED defines a tag as: "A point of metal or other hard substance at the end of a lace, string, strap, or the like, primarily used to facilitate its insertion through an eyelet-hole, as in a boot-lace or stay-lace, but when externally visible often made ornamental, as on the ?points? in use before buttons; an aglet." I guess that's the wanted word.

  B C Rowe, London

• At a club quiz I was at last year, the questionmaster (reading from a bought-in set of questions) asked what an "aglet" was and offered to run around the local branch of British Home Stores stark naked if any team knew the answer. One team (which usually came last) did but, rather unsportingly we all feel, the questionmaster did not honour his undertaking.

  R J Gibbs, Cardiff

• Jenny from Crawley is clearly not the parent of a young child. We need to use the word "aglet" extremely frequently, as children regularly destroy them, making their shoes nearly impossible to re-lace.

  Charli, London UK

• During a game of 'I-Spy' on a particularly long and boring journey some years ago, one player kept us guessing for hours with 'something beginning with 'F''. This turned out to be 'flugelbinder' which he claimed was the bit on the end of his shoelace. Has anyone else come across this word?

• flugelbinder? tom cruise reference in the film called "cocktail". i think that it's a better word than "aglet" though

  hil, swansea wales

• An aglet. I find it very stupid that there is a name for it though, it seems quite pointless.

  lucy, Liverpool, UK