laboratory

American  

[lab-ruh-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee, lab-er-uh-, luh-bor-uh-tuh-ree, -uh-tree] / ˈlæb rəˌtɔr i, -ˌtoʊr i, ˈlæb ər ə-, ləˈbɒr ə tə ri, -ə tri /

noun

• laboratories
  plural

1. a building, part of a building, or other place equipped to conduct scientific experiments, tests, investigations, etc., or to manufacture chemicals, medicines, or the like.

2. any place, situation, set of conditions, or the like, conducive to experimentation, investigation, observation, etc.; anything suggestive of a scientific laboratory.

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adjective

1. serving a function in a laboratory.

2. relating to techniques of work in a laboratory.

   laboratory methods; laboratory research.

laboratory British  

/ ləˈbɒrətərɪ, ˈlæbrəˌtɔːrɪ, -trɪ /

noun

1. 1. a building or room equipped for conducting scientific research or for teaching practical science

   2. ( as modifier )

      laboratory equipment

2. a place where chemicals or medicines are manufactured

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• laboratorian
  noun
• interlaboratory
  adjective
• laboratorial
  adjective
• laboratorially
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• laboratories
  plural

Etymology

Origin of laboratory

1595–1605; < Medieval Latin labōrātōrium workshop, equivalent to Latin labōrā ( re ) to labor + -tōrium -tory ²

Explanation

A laboratory is a place where experiments happen, usually scientific experiments involving chemicals and lab coats, but there are creative and athletic laboratories too, where people experiment with writing and footballs. When you think of a laboratory, you might see men and women wearing face masks pouring colorful liquids into test tubes, and you’d be correct. Any place that is a testing ground for new ideas is a laboratory, like a class full of people thinking up new ways to make paper airplanes. The Latin verb laborare means “to labor,” so remember that a laboratory is a place of hard work: you can’t spell laboratory without labor in it.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

laboratory laboratories

In laboratory experiments, optimized combinations of the proteins were about 10 times more potent than the current sheep-derived rattlesnake antivenom.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 8, 2026

Then doctors told him about CAR-T treatment, in which a patient’s immune cells are extracted, re-engineered in a laboratory and reintroduced into the body to fight cancer cells.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 7, 2026

Patti's laboratory still needs to determine exactly how bacteria break down and remove sorbitol, but the researchers found clear evidence that sorbitol does not necessarily remain confined to the digestive tract.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 6, 2026

When the researchers blocked those proteins in laboratory and animal models, fewer cancer cells survived, and the remaining cells became more vulnerable to radiation.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 6, 2026

He obviously did not want to tell what happened, since in his own story of the laboratory, and the suit, and his trip to Chicago he never mentioned Edward at all.

From "Z for Zachariah" by Robert C. O’Brien

The challenge is that magnetic fields strong enough to make the effect detectable are far beyond anything scientists can generate in laboratories on Earth.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 27, 2026

"Thankfully, nature has provided us with magnetars, which are the perfect cosmic laboratories to go looking for this effect."

From Science Daily ● Aug. 27, 2026

The artificial intelligence laboratories now under discussion in Brussels and Washington exist because the regulatory environment was thin when they were founded, closer to Edison’s Menlo Park than to today’s pharmaceutical sector.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026

These laboratories, where Mexicans have been working, have since been uncovered in Kenya, Mozambique and in South Africa.

From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026

As additional proof from other laboratories and experiments accumulated in the 1950s, even the most hidebound skeptics had to convert into believers.*

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Related Words

• lab
• workshop