ab
Syllables: A·B/æb/US/ɑb/
ab is the clipping of abdominal muscle.
ab is the abbreviation of abort.
ab is the abbreviation of abortion.
ab is the abbreviation of about.
Meaning of abdominal muscle
Noun
abdominal muscle (plural abdominal muscles)
- Any of a group of four muscles that form the abdominal wall.
- (plural)
Meaning of abort
Verb
abort (third-person singular simple present aborts, present participle aborting, simple past and past participle aborted)
- To miscarry; to bring forth (non-living) offspring prematurely.
- Women have aborted, men have committed suicide, and both men and women have been thrown into convulsions during the fearful agony of renal colic.1785, Henry Morris, Surgical Diseases of the Kidney, page 458
- To cause a premature termination of (a fetus); to end a pregnancy before term.
- "Of course, you can't abort yourself...I mean you positively can't be allowed to. To begin with it's a crime."1961, Xavier Herbert, Soldiers' Women, Netley, SA: Fontana Books, published 1978, page 236
- To end prematurely; to stop in the preliminary stages; to turn back.
- To stop or fail at something in the preliminary stages.
- To become checked in normal development, so as either to remain rudimentary or shrink away wholly; to cease organic growth before maturation; to become sterile.
- To cause an organism to develop minimally; to cause rudimentary development to happen; to prevent maturation.
Noun (1)
ab (plural abs)
Verb
ab (third-person singular simple present abs, present participle abbing, simple past and past participle abbed)
- To abseil.
- I had a climbing rope in my pack, set up an abseil with it, and abbed down to him.1998, Climbing, numbers 178-180, page 22
Noun (2)
ab (plural abs)
- The early stages of; the beginning process; the start.
Proper noun (1) capitalized: AB
IPA/ˌeɪˈbiː/
AB
- Abbreviation of Alberta: a province of Canada.
- Initialism of Artium baccalaureus.
- Initialism of Aryan Brotherhood, a US white supremacist, neo-Nazi prison gang and crime syndicate.
- Synonyms:
- 12
- Initialism of Anheuser-Busch.
- Shares of AB InBev (BUD) soared nearly 6% after the Budweiser, Bud Light and Stella Artois owner reported solid sales and earnings.2019 July 25, Paul R. La Monica, “Good news for the king of beer: People are drinking more”, in CNN Business
Noun (3) capitalized: AB
IPA/ˌeɪˈbiː/
AB (countable and uncountable, plural ABs)
- Initialism of able seaman or able-bodied seaman.
- In this Ordinance, unless the context otherwise requires— A.B. means an able-bodied seaman […]Section 2(1), Merchant Shipping (Seafarers) Ordinance (Cap. 478)
- Initialism of afterburner.
- Initialism of aid to the blind.
- Initialism of airbase.
- Abbreviation of alkylbenzene.
- Initialism of antibody.
- Initialism of artificial breeding.
- Initialism of assembly bill.
- AB-89 would have required that participation in sex-segregated California school programs, athletic teams, and facility use be based on a pupil’s sex, not gender identity.2025 April 1, FOX26 News Staff, “Both transgender athlete bills fail in California”, in FOX26 News
- A blood type of the ABO system that has both blood antigens and may receive all blood types, and donate to AB.
- A person with this blood type.
- Initialism of adult baby.
- Well, he appears to be an AB. You know, an adult baby. It's a fetish in which the baby is taken care of in every way by a mommy or a daddy.2002 October 3, Dee Johnson, “Dead Again” (at 23:18–23:27 from the start), in Richard Thorpe, director, ER, season 9, episode 2, spoken by Michael Gallant (Sharif Atkins)
- Initialism of asymmetric bars.
- A halal snack pack consisting of doner meat topped with chips, tomato sauce, chilli sauce, barbecue sauce, and garlic sauce.
- Initialism of attentional blink.
Adjective capitalized: AB
IPA/ˌeɪˈbiː/
AB (not comparable)
- Initialism of airborne.
- Initialism of antiballistic.
- Initialism of at bat.
Noun (4) capitalized: Ab
Ab (plural Abs)
- Symbol for antibody.
- Synonyms:
- Ig, immunoglobulin
Proper noun (2) capitalized: Ab
Ab (plural Abs)
- Av.
- The Book of Lamentations is chanted in the synagogue on the ninth of Ab.1929, Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, Jewish Music: Its Historical Development, page 56
Proper noun (3) capitalized: Ab
Ab
- A diminutive of the male given name Abner, from Hebrew, occasionally used as a formal given name.
Noun (5) capitalized: Ab
Ab (plural Abs)
Noun (6) capitalized: Ab
Ab (uncountable)
- Abbreviation of Abbot.
Synonyms of ab
Antonyms
Forms of ab
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | abs |
| plural | ABs |
| plural | Abs |
| alternative form | ib |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | abs |
| present participle | abbing |
| past participle | abbed |
| past | abbed |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Abs |
Origin of ab
Abbreviation of abscess.
Abbreviations.
From the spelling books and the fact that it was the first of the letter combinations.
Words formed from ab
Phrases with ab
Words that rhyme with ab
Questions about ab
- What does ab mean?
- Ab means an abscess caused by injecting an illegal drug, usually heroin.
- What is ab the clipping of?
- Ab is the clipping of abdominal muscle.
- What part of speech is ab?
- Ab can be a noun, a verb, a proper noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce ab?
- Ab is pronounced /æb/.
- What is the plural of ab?
- The plural of ab is abs.
Words near ab in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ab (page history and authors); AB (page history and authors); Ab (page history and authors); abdominal muscle (page history and authors); abort (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-ab.wav.
Cite this entry: “ab.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ab. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.