Ab
noun
Av.
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
Over billions of years, Epsilon Indi Ab is expected to cool and eventually become even colder than Jupiter.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 22, 2026
Some flirted only briefly with Ab Ex ideas before moving on.
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
If I find my uncle, Ab Sheehan, he might give me some of his Friday night fish and chips, but they tell me in the cafe he came and went already.
From "Angela's Ashes: A Memoir" by Frank McCourt
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
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
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
“We continue to expect group adjusted operating profit and adjusted EPS in 2026 to be below last year,” AB Foods said Wednesday.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026
Any AB and NAB naturals out there who want to share their regimen?
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
Nature ab- horreth the warre of the Grecians.
From A booke called the Foundacion of Rhetorike because all other partes of Rhetorike are grounded thereupon, euery parte sette forthe in an Oracion vpon questions, verie profitable to bee knowen and redde by Richard Rainolde
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
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 Sir Thomas Browne
When first I doffed my olive drab, I thought, delightedly though mutely, "Henceforth I shall have pleasure ab- Solutely."
From Something Else Again by Franklin P. (Franklin Pierce) Adams
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
"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
Gay and trans high school students right now are experiencing fear that is “like being a little more closeted,” said Delana Martin-Marshall, 38, an art teacher at A.B.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2025
Besides Park and the victim, the White House’s chief usher A.B.
From Salon ● Mar. 20, 2025
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.
