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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

"There's nothing like spending the day looking at something no other human has ever seen," the Field Museum's X-ray lab head Stephanie Smith said in a statement.

From Barron's • May 25, 2026

DeepMind — established in 2010 by Hassabis and fellow technologists Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman — became the first modern artificial-general-intelligence lab, and its 2014 acquisition by Google famously galvanized the creation of OpenAI.

From MarketWatch • May 23, 2026

Existing drugs are then tested on multiple batches of those neurones using a combination of robots, traditional lab equipment and computers powering specialist algorithms.

From BBC • May 22, 2026

A materials lab also allows you to handle many of the items that go into Ms. Bove’s art.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 22, 2026

He searched the rest of the room, through the lab, scattering the neatly arranged equipment.

From "Boy 2.0" by Tracey Baptiste

Related Words

• workshop