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:
Epsilon Indi Ab orbits about four times farther from its star than Jupiter does from the Sun.
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
Saunders and Dame Joanna both won Baftas for their portrayals of PR boss Edina and retired model Patsy, respectively, in the popular 1990s British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous - aka Ab Fab.
From BBC ● Oct. 22, 2025
So it felt like Ab to Abby was a very cute jump.
From Salon ● Jun. 29, 2025
Everyone calls him The Abbot or Ab Sheehan and no one knows why.
From "Angela's Ashes: A Memoir" by Frank McCourt
Paul Powers, chief executive of Physna, a company whose technology could be used to block gun parts on 3-D printers, said the strongest criticisms of AB 2047 “misunderstand how the software works.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 19, 2026
Volvo AB beat consensus expectations for sales and adjusted earnings before interest and taxes by 1% and 2%, respectively, the analyst adds.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 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
Rapidly growing Cutwater Spirits is owned by Budweiser brewer AB InBev ABI 1.86%increase; up pointing triangle , for example.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 5, 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
But the Chaldeans, the great idolaters of fire, ab- horred the burning of their carcases, as a pollution of that deity.
From Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend by Browne, Thomas, Sir
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 Verne, Jules
I demand an ab- solute knowledge of the then present; I demand a knowledge of the constitution of the human mind— of the facts in nature, and that is all I demand.
From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 5 (of 12) Dresden Edition?Discussions by Ingersoll, Robert Green
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 Murray, James Augustus Henry
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 Furnivall, Frederick James
"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
Legislation that passed the California Assembly last month known as the College Athlete Protection Act, or A.B.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 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.
