DOC: use Hashable instead of label (#61500)

DOC: #61455 (comment)

Author: cmp0xff

pandas/core/frame.py

@@ -337,15 +337,15 @@
       to SQL left anti join; preserve key order.
     * right_anti: use only keys from right frame that are not in left frame, similar
       to SQL right anti join; preserve key order.
-on : label or list
+on : Hashable or a sequence of the previous
     Column or index level names to join on. These must be found in both
     DataFrames. If `on` is None and not merging on indexes then this defaults
     to the intersection of the columns in both DataFrames.
-left_on : label or list, or array-like
+left_on : Hashable or a sequence of the previous, or array-like
     Column or index level names to join on in the left DataFrame. Can also
     be an array or list of arrays of the length of the left DataFrame.
     These arrays are treated as if they are columns.
-right_on : label or list, or array-like
+right_on : Hashable or a sequence of the previous, or array-like
     Column or index level names to join on in the right DataFrame. Can also
     be an array or list of arrays of the length of the right DataFrame.
     These arrays are treated as if they are columns.
@@ -7395,7 +7395,7 @@ def value_counts(
 
         Parameters
         ----------
-        subset : label or list of labels, optional
+        subset : Hashable or a sequence of the previous, optional
             Columns to use when counting unique combinations.
         normalize : bool, default False
             Return proportions rather than frequencies.
@@ -7546,7 +7546,7 @@ def nlargest(
         ----------
         n : int
             Number of rows to return.
-        columns : label or list of labels
+        columns : Hashable or a sequence of the previous
             Column label(s) to order by.
         keep : {'first', 'last', 'all'}, default 'first'
             Where there are duplicate values:

pandas/core/indexes/base.py

@@ -1913,12 +1913,12 @@ def set_names(self, names, *, level=None, inplace: bool = False) -> Self | None:
         Parameters
         ----------
 
-        names : label or list of label or dict-like for MultiIndex
+        names : Hashable or a sequence of the previous or dict-like for MultiIndex
             Name(s) to set.
 
             .. versionchanged:: 1.3.0
 
-        level : int, label or list of int or label, optional
+        level : int, Hashable or a sequence of the previous, optional
             If the index is a MultiIndex and names is not dict-like, level(s) to set
             (None for all levels). Otherwise level must be None.
 
@@ -2023,7 +2023,7 @@ def rename(self, name, *, inplace: bool = False) -> Self | None:
 
         Parameters
         ----------
-        name : label or list of labels
+        name : Hashable or a sequence of the previous
             Name(s) to set.
         inplace : bool, default False
             Modifies the object directly, instead of creating a new Index or

pandas/core/reshape/merge.py

@@ -198,15 +198,15 @@ def merge(
           to SQL left anti join; preserve key order.
         * right_anti: use only keys from right frame that are not in left frame, similar
           to SQL right anti join; preserve key order.
-    on : label or list
+    on : Hashable or a sequence of the previous
         Column or index level names to join on. These must be found in both
         DataFrames. If `on` is None and not merging on indexes then this defaults
         to the intersection of the columns in both DataFrames.
-    left_on : label or list, or array-like
+    left_on : Hashable or a sequence of the previous, or array-like
         Column or index level names to join on in the left DataFrame. Can also
         be an array or list of arrays of the length of the left DataFrame.
         These arrays are treated as if they are columns.
-    right_on : label or list, or array-like
+    right_on : Hashable or a sequence of the previous, or array-like
         Column or index level names to join on in the right DataFrame. Can also
         be an array or list of arrays of the length of the right DataFrame.
         These arrays are treated as if they are columns.
@@ -536,13 +536,13 @@ def merge_ordered(
         First pandas object to merge.
     right : DataFrame or named Series
         Second pandas object to merge.
-    on : label or list
+    on : Hashable or a sequence of the previous
         Field names to join on. Must be found in both DataFrames.
-    left_on : label or list, or array-like
+    left_on : Hashable or a sequence of the previous, or array-like
         Field names to join on in left DataFrame. Can be a vector or list of
         vectors of the length of the DataFrame to use a particular vector as
         the join key instead of columns.
-    right_on : label or list, or array-like
+    right_on : Hashable or a sequence of the previous, or array-like
         Field names to join on in right DataFrame or vector/list of vectors per
         left_on docs.
     left_by : column name or list of column names