lab
noun
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lab
1 American
[lab]
/ læb /
noun
Lab
2
American
[lab]
/ læb /
noun
LAB
3
American
Or
lab
abbreviation
Slang.
lab.
4
American
abbreviation
-
labor.
-
laboratory.
-
laborer.
Lab.
5
American
abbreviation
-
Laborite.
-
Labrador.
Lab.
1
British
abbreviation
-
politics Labour
-
Labrador
lab
2
British
/ læb /
noun
-
short for laboratory
-
short for Labrador retriever
lab.
3
British
abbreviation
-
laboratory
-
labour
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
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
OpenAI was born in 2015, when Altman laid out his plans for an artificial-intelligence lab that prioritized safety.
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
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
Gabriel Cohn, Ph.D., the study's first author, carried out the research while working in Sears' lab at OHSU.
From Science Daily • May 17, 2026
“I was in the lab, and they had all the equipment, and I couldn’t say why I didn’t want them to do it. It was all really fast.”
From "Boy 2.0" by Tracey Baptiste
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.
