Ab
noun
Av.
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Ab
1 American
[ahb, ahv]
/ ɑb, ɑv /
noun
AB
3
American
abbreviation
-
Nautical. able seaman.
-
U.S. Air Force. Airman Basic.
-
Alberta, Canada (approved for postal use).
-
antiballistic; antiballistic missile.
AB
4
American
Symbol, Physiology.
ab-
5
American
ab.
6
American
abbreviation
-
about.
-
Baseball. (times) at bat.
A.B.
7
American
abbreviation
A.B.
8
American
AB
1
British
abbreviation
-
Also: a.b.. able-bodied seaman
-
(in the US) Bachelor of Arts
-
(esp in postal addresses) Alberta (Canada)
symbol
Ab
2
British
/ æb /
noun
ab-
3
British
prefix
ab-
4
British
prefix
Etymology
Origin of ab-5
< Latin ab (preposition and prefix) from, away, cognate with Greek apó, Sanskrit ápa, German ab, English of 1, off
Origin of A.B.7
< New Latin, Medieval Latin Artium Baccalaureus
Explanation
An ab is a stomach, or abdominal, muscle. Doing sit ups and crunches will help you tone your abs. Ab is shorthand for abdominal, which comes from the Latin abdomen, "belly," and it's a common name for what's formally known as the rectus abdominus muscle. Your abs run up and down the front of your torso, on either side of your belly button. In extremely fit or muscly people with little body fat, you can actually see how the abs are separated into several sections, the so-called "six-pack."
Vocabulary lists containing ab
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"Coming back from the vault was disappointing but I was super proud for Ab," said Emily.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
The planet, known as Epsilon Indi Ab, is similar to Jupiter, yet its atmosphere appears more complex than expected.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 22, 2026
The testosterone-based view of Ab Ex is entrenched, but recent scholarship has focused attention elsewhere.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 28, 2026
So it felt like Ab to Abby was a very cute jump.
From Salon ● Jun. 29, 2025
Next came old Ab Pulliam in his goat cart, the pants of his gray uniform folded under his thigh stubs.
From "Cold Sassy Tree" by Olive Ann Burns
AB InBev backed its outlook for the year, with Ebitda expected to grow between 4% and 8% compared with a year earlier, in line with mid-term targets.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026
Billionaire U.S. investor Kenneth Dart has raised his stake in Swedish gaming group Evolution AB to around 30.02%, passing the threshold that requires the launch of a mandatory takeover offer.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
Funding from MetaCurUm Biotech AB, a biotechnology company based in Umeå, was essential for developing and testing the treatment.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 21, 2026
The initial draft of AB 46 had proposed also excluding attempted murder charges from the diversion program, but this language was later removed during revisions.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
A friend of a friend, a cool AB with tons of money, is writing a book called Traveling While Black.
From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
It is altogether too easy to allow one's sense of the ab- surdity of a good many of its episodes to cloud one's perception of the beauty underlying them.
From Time Magazine Archive
To find whether a wanted word in ab- occurs in this glossary, it was necessary to look through more than two columns containing ninety-five entries.
From The evolution of English lexicography by James Augustus Henry Murray
It appears as a-, ab-, ac-, ad-, af-, ag-, al-, an-, ap-, ar-, as-, at-, as in achieve, abbreviate, accede, admire, affix, aggregate, allot, annex, approve, arrive, assign, attract.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 4 of 4: S-Z and supplements) by Various
Falsten holds little communication with any of us, but remains ab- sorbed in his calculations, and amuses himself by tracing mechanical diagrams with ground-plan, section, elevation, all complete.
From The Survivors of the Chancellor by Jules Verne
And, ere the first The skates were Of their brief ab- Was left within the faint gleam of day, safely stowed away; sence not a trace dusty place.
From The Brownies: Their Book by Palmer Cox
In the third edition it was reprinted at the end of the Stans puer ad Mensam by Wynkin de Worde ab. 1501-1510.
From Caxton's Book of Curtesye by Frederick James Furnivall
With A.B. on bass, Suzette on drums and Selena as the tender vocalist, the trio would often perform at the family restaurant, PapaGayo’s, which later closed following the 1981 recession.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 13, 2025
"Our focus is on crop improvement, pest and disease surveillance, soil management, capacity building, and technology transfer related to cardamom," says A.B.
From BBC ● Nov. 20, 2025
“We’re in our toddler, young juvenile phase, of trying to navigate things with the industry,” said Felicia A.B.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 14, 2025
Speaking in the aftermath of that horror, then-prime minister A.B.
From Salon ● Dec. 6, 2023
He planned to complete work for an A.B. degree and then enter law school.
From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
