Word.ws English Dictionary

PABA

PABA noun: para-aminobenzoic acid, a member of the B-complex family of vitamins that can be synthesized by the human body from folic acid, and used primarily as an active ingredient in sunscreen, but also is necessary for some intestinal bacteria. Also the initialism of Pan Asian Boxing Association.

paba: para-aminobenzoic acid, a member of the B-complex family of vitamins that can be synthesized by the...
Image: Fvasconcellos 19:56, 22 July, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

PABA (uncountable)

  1. Para-aminobenzoic acid, a member of the B-complex family of vitamins that can be synthesized by the human body from folic acid, and used primarily as an active ingredient in sunscreen, but also is necessary for some intestinal bacteria.
    • The inhibitory action of PABA on the growth of rickettsiae was first demonstrated experimentally against murine typhus in 1942 by Snyder, Maier, and Anderson.1968, Donald Greiff, Henry Pinkerton, VIncente Moragues, “Effect of Enzyme Inhibitors and Activators on the Multiplication of Typus Rickettsiae: I. Penicillin, Para-aminobenzoic Acid, Sodium...
    • Furthermore, these newer compounds are much less likely to permanently stain clothing; the older PABA formulations were famous for the yellow stain they left behind.1982, Stuart Maddin, Alastair Carruthers, Terence H. Brown, Current Dermatologic Therapy, page 610

Also used as

PABA is also the initialism of Pan Asian Boxing Association.

PABA is also the initialism of Philippine Amateur Baseball Association.

Questions about PABA

What does PABA mean?
PABA means para-aminobenzoic acid, a member of the B-complex family of vitamins that can be synthesized by the human body from folic acid, and used primarily as an active ingredient in sunscreen, but also is necessary for some intestinal bacteria.
What part of speech is PABA?
PABA is a noun.

Words near PABA in the dictionary

  1. Paarthiba
  2. PAAs
  3. paauw
  4. paauws
  5. PAB
  6. PABA
  7. Pabanog
  8. pabble
  9. pabbled
  10. pabbles
  11. pabbling

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: PABA (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: “PABA.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/paba. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.