Word.ws English Dictionary

ab-

ab- prefix: from.

Prefix (1)

ab-

  1. (idiomatic) From.
    • ab- + sorb → absorb
  2. (idiomatic) Away from; outside of.
    • ab- + normal → abnormal
    • ab- + axial → abaxial

Prefix (2)

ab-

  1. Used in the names of certain units in the centimeter-gram-second system.
    • ab- + coulomb → abcoulomb
    • ab- + henry → abhenry

Synonyms of ab-

Forms of ab-

alternative forma-
alternative formabs-

Origin of ab-

Borrowed from Latin ab-, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂epo (“off, away”) (English off, of). Doublet of apo- and off-.

Clipping of absolute.

Questions about ab-

What does ab- mean?
Ab- means from.
What part of speech is ab-?
Ab- is a prefix.

Words near ab- in the dictionary

  1. ab rollers
  2. ab urbe condita
  3. ab utili
  4. ab wheel
  5. ab wheels
  6. ab-
  7. ab-dabs
  8. Ab-Ex
  9. AB-yogurt
  10. ab.
  11. AB/DL

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ab- (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:

Cite this entry: “ab-.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ab-. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.