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• lab
  lab

  noun

  laboratory.
• Lab
  Lab

  noun

  Labrador retriever.
• LAB
  LAB

  abbreviation

  life’s a bitch (used to acknowledge, often dismissively, a difficult or unfair circumstance).
• lab.
  lab.

  abbreviation

  labor.
• Lab.
  Lab.

  abbreviation

  Laborite.

lab

¹ American  

[lab] / læb /

noun

1. laboratory.

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Lab ² American  

[lab] / læb /

noun

1. Informal. Labrador retriever.

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LAB ³ American  

Or lab

abbreviation

Slang.

1. life’s a bitch (used to acknowledge, often dismissively, a difficult or unfair circumstance).

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lab. ⁴ American  

abbreviation

1. labor.

2. laboratory.

3. laborer.

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Lab. ⁵ American  

abbreviation

1. Laborite.

2. Labrador.

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Lab. ¹ British  

abbreviation

1. politics Labour

2. Labrador

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lab ² British  

/ læb /

noun

1. short for laboratory

2. short for Labrador retriever

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lab. ³ British  

abbreviation

1. laboratory

2. labour

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Etymology

Origin of lab¹

By shortening

Origin of Lab²

By shortening

Origin of LAB³

From its use in digital communications

Explanation

A lab is a room or building where science experiments, tests, and research are done. Most high schools have science labs for biology and chemistry classes. Lab is shorthand for laboratory, with its Medieval Latin root laboratorium, "a place for labor or work," from the Latin laborare, "to work." Many scientists and researchers go to work each day in a lab (often wearing a "lab coat," a white smock that protects their clothes). Some labs are equipped for studying the way plants grow and reproduce, while in others scientists study the brainwaves of human subjects or the traits of a virus. If you are a scientist, chances are you hang out in a lab.

Example Sentences

Before they named the lab OpenAI, the founders kicked around other ideas.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 18, 2026

The industry celebrated “fusion ignition” in December 2022, when an experiment at a DOE-funded national lab produced more energy than was needed to drive it.

From MarketWatch • May 18, 2026

That weakness becomes an enormous challenge in the lab.

From Science Daily • May 18, 2026

Musk claims Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman improperly used a $38 million donation he had intended to sustain OpenAI as a research lab devoted to developing AI for the benefit of humanity.

From Barron's • May 18, 2026

He turned back to look at the rest of the lab, but once the doors shut—with a soft, but determined click—the glass filled in with a pale gray color, like a cloud crossing the sky.

From "Boy 2.0" by Tracey Baptiste

Related Words

• workshop