The phrase "a descriptor for" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when you want to specify a term or phrase that describes or characterizes something.
Example: "In the context of software development, 'agile' serves as a descriptor for a flexible and iterative approach to project management."
Alternatives: "a term for" or "a label for".
Caroline Alexander examines the literary use of wine as a descriptor for the sea.
Forget the word "virgin" as a descriptor for both yourself and others.
My post on Ronald Radosh's somewhat muddled approval of "fascism" as a descriptor for President Obama's policies has occasioned responses from Jonah Goldberg, Michael Ledeen, and Radosh himself.
A class is a descriptor for a set of objects that share some attributes and/ or operations.
By Hendrik Hertzberg March 7, 2009 My post on Ronald Radosh's somewhat muddled approval of "fascism" as a descriptor for President Obama's policies has occasioned responses from Jonah Goldberg, Michael Ledeen, and Radosh himself.
In this paper, we explore three surfaces that have similar computed nitrogen binding energies, which is a descriptor for the ammonia decomposition reaction.
As expected, the A-descriptor for cinnamic acid dimer (0.24) is much less than that for twice the monomer (1.22) because the two OH protons are internally bonded and are less available for bonding to an external hydrogen bond base.
New Jersey is just a couple of words to her, a nondescript descriptor for a place where she has no memory of having lived and no visual image in which to place her father.
Of the existing system calls, only close needs to accept a file descriptor for a directory.
The pollster uses an unusual pool for its polls, talking only to "likely voters" — a nebulous descriptor for a subset of the population that doesn't try to approximate the views of all Americans.
It is a tidy descriptor for a superhero among supercars, and while not inaccurate, it does not capture the screaming outrageousness of Chevrolet's achievement.
