Word.ws English Dictionary

stab

/stæb/

stab noun: an act of stabbing or thrusting with an object to hurt or kill someone. Also the clipping of established.

stab: an act of stabbing or thrusting with an object to hurt or kill someone
Image: John Leech, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

stab (plural stabs)

  1. An act of stabbing or thrusting with an object to hurt or kill someone.
    • A knife was flashing in his hand, and just as he was about to take a stab at me, the smith grabbed his arm from behind.1979, Karl May, The Secret Brotherhood: A Novel, Seabury Press, →ISBN, page 52
  2. A wound made by stabbing.
    • I opened the man's linen robe, and there over his heart was a dagger-wound, and beneath the woman's fair breast was a like cruel stab, through which her life had ebbed away.1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC
  3. Pain inflicted on a person's feelings.
    • “I bet you two have really big plans. And might I say, that is just fab,” he said of Lynn's dress. “I'm glad someone noticed,” she replied, seeming to take a stab at me.2001, Van Whitfield, Guys in Suits: A Novel, Doubleday, →ISBN, page 73
  4. (informal) An attempt.
    • I'll give this thankless task a stab.
    • As yet, we don't know what the comparable figures will be like for the current financial year which ends in March 2022, but we can have a good stab at approximating them.2022 January 12, Sir Michael Holden, “Reform of the workforce or death by a thousand cuts?”, in RAIL, number 948, page 22
  5. Criticism.
  6. A single staccato chord that adds dramatic impact to a composition.
    • a horn stab
  7. A bacterial culture made by inoculating a solid medium, such as gelatin, with the puncture of a needle or wire.

Verb

stab (third-person singular simple present stabs, present participle stabbing, simple past and past participle stabbed)

  1. (transitive) To pierce or to wound (somebody) with a (usually pointed) tool or weapon, especially a knife or dagger.
    • If you stab him in the heart he won't live long enough to retaliate.
    • "There the cause of death was soon ascertained ; the victim of this daring outrage had been stabbed to death from ear to ear with a long, sharp instrument, in shape like an antique stiletto, which […] was subsequently found under the cushions of the hansom.[…]"1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Tremarn Case”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening &...
    Synonyms:
    foin, jab, shiv
  2. (transitive) To thrust in a stabbing motion.
    • to stab a dagger into a person
  3. (intransitive) To recklessly hit with the tip of a (usually pointed) object, such as a weapon or finger (often used with at).
    • He stabbed at my face with the twig but luckily kept missing my eyes.
    • None shall dare / With shortened sword to stab in closer war.1700, [John] Dryden, “Palamon and Arcite: Or, The Knight’s Tale. In Three Books.”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC
  4. (intransitive) To cause a sharp, painful sensation (often used with at).
    • The snow from the blizzard was stabbing at my face as I skied down the mountain.
  5. (figuratively, transitive) To injure secretly or by malicious falsehood or slander.
    • to stab a person's reputation
  6. (transitive) To roughen a brick wall with a pick so as to hold plaster.
  7. (transitive) To pierce folded sheets, near their back edges, for the passage of thread or wire.
  8. (transitive, oil industry) To guide the end of a pipe into a coupling when making up a connection.
    • [O]ne of the derrickman's jobs is to "stab" the pipe.2005, Paul Carter, Don't Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs, Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin, page 57

Noun (2)

stab (plural stabs)

  1. (slang) The horizontal or vertical stabilizer of an aircraft.
    • If the pilots used electric pitch trim, it would only pause MCAS for 5s; to deactivate it you have to switch off the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches.2020, Chris Brady, “737 MAX - MCAS”, in The Boeing 737 Technical Site, archived from the original on 23 Jan 2021

Noun (3) capitalized: STAB

STAB (uncountable)

  1. (slang) A 50% damage boost applied when a Pokémon uses a move with the same type as itself (for example, an Electric-type Pokémon using an Electric-type move).

Also used as

stab is also the clipping of established.

stab is also the clipping of establishment.

stab meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Telugu

stab in Hindi

to pierce or wound with pointed object
भोंकना bhoṅknā

stab in Tamil

act of stabbing
குத்து kuttu
attempt
முயற்சி muyaṟci
criticism
விமர்சனம் vimarcaṉam
to pierce or wound with pointed object
குத்து kuttu

stab in Marathi

to pierce or wound with pointed object
भोसकणे bhosakṇe

stab in Telugu

కత్తిపోట్లు వేయడానికి
More languagesFewer languages
stab in Punjabi
ਛੁਰਾ ਮਾਰਨ ਲਈ
stab in Gujarati
છરી મારવા
stab in Assamese
খোঁচা khü̃sa, হেঁচা hẽsa
stab in Nepali
छुरा हाल्नका लागि
stab in Tagalog
saksak
stab in Arabic
طَعْن ṭaʕn, طَعْنَة ṭaʕna, طَعَنَ ṭaʕana
stab in Malay
penikaman, tikaman, tikam
stab in Indonesian
tikam
stab in Persian
خنجر زدن, خلاندن xalândan
stab in Thai
การแทง, แทง tɛɛng, เสียบ sìiap
stab in Vietnamese
đâm
stab in Myanmar
ထိုး htui:

Examples of stab in a sentence

  • One of them got stuck in a chokehold and got stabbed to death during the fight.
  • He took out his sword and stabbed the man in the stomach.
  • Ernest made the pencil too sharp and accidentally stabbed himself with it.

All 40 example sentences with stab

Synonyms of stab

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of stab

Forms of stab

Noun
pluralstabs
Verb
third-person singular presentstabs
present participlestabbing
past participlestabbed
paststabbed

Past tense of stab: stabbed

Plural of stab: stabs

Origin of stab

First attested in Scottish English (compare Scots stob, stobbe, stabb (“a pointed stick or stake; a thrust with a pointed weapon”)), from Middle English stabbe (“a stab”), probably a variant of Middle English stob, stub, stubbe (“pointed stick, stake, thorn, stub, stump”), from Old Norse stobbi, stubbi, cognate with Old English stybb. Cognate with Middle Dutch stobbe. Supposed by some to derive from Scottish Gaelic stob (“to prick, to prod, to push, to thrust”); supposed by others to be from a Scots word.

Clipping of stabilizer or stabiliser.

Acronym of same-type attack bonus.

Words formed from stab

Phrases with stab

Words that rhyme with stab

17 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about stab

What does stab mean?
Stab means an act of stabbing or thrusting with an object to hurt or kill someone.
What is stab in Hindi?
Stab in Hindi is भोंकना (bhoṅknā). See Stab meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is stab?
Stab can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce stab?
Stab is pronounced /stæb/.
What is the plural of stab?
The plural of stab is stabs.

Words near stab in the dictionary

  1. Staal
  2. Staals
  3. STAAR
  4. StaaS
  5. Staatsburg
  6. stab
  7. stab a guess
  8. stab binding
  9. stab bindings
  10. stab cell
  11. stab cells

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stab (page history and authors); STAB (page history and authors); stab (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); stab (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); stab (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); stab (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: en-us-stab.ogg.

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