AB, Ab, or ab may refer to:

Arts and media

* ''

American Bandstand ''American Bandstand'' (AB) is an American Music television, music performance and dance television series that aired in various iterations from 1952 to 1989. It was hosted by Dick Clark who also served as the program's Television producer, pr ...

'', a music-performance television show * ''

Analecta Bollandiana The Bollandist Society (; ) is an association of scholars, philologists, and historians (originally all Jesuits, but now including non-Jesuits) who since the early seventeenth century have studied hagiography and the cult of the saints in Christia ...

'', an academic journal *

Ancienne Belgique The (''AB'') is a concert hall for contemporary music in Brussels, Belgium. Located in the historic heart of Brussels, it is one of the leading concert venues in Belgium, hosting a wide variety of international and local acts. Some 300,000 pe ...

, a concert hall in Brussels, Belgium

Business

Business terminology

* ''Akcinė bendrovė'', Lithuanian equivalent of an S.A. corporation *

Aktiebolag (, " stock company") is the Swedish term for "limited company" or "corporation". When used in company names, it is abbreviated as "AB" (in Sweden), "Ab" (in Finland), or, rarely, "A/B" (dated), roughly equivalent to the abbreviations ''Corp.'', ...

, Swedish for "corporation", similar to AG, Ltd or Inc

Businesses

* A & B High Performance Firearms, a defunct sporting firearms manufacturer * AB Airlines, a defunct British airline *

AB Groupe Mediawan Thematics (formerly known as AB Groupe) is a French television channel business and audiovisual distribution group in the field of broadcasting that is owned by Mediawan. History Mediawan Thematics had its roots under the name of AB P ...

, a French broadcasting group *

Activision Blizzard Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California. Activision Blizzard currently includes three operating units: Activision, Blizzard Entertainment and King (company), King. Founded in July 2 ...

, American holding company for Activision and Blizzard Entertainment *

Air Berlin Air Berlin plc & Co. Luftverkehrs KG (), branded as airberlin or airberlin.com, was a major German airline. At its peak, it was Germany's second-largest airline after Lufthansa, as well as Europe's tenth-largest airline in terms of passengers c ...

(former IATA airline code AB), a former airline operating 1978–2017 * Alderson-Broaddus College, a liberal-arts college in West Virginia, US * Alfa-Beta Vassilopoulos, a Greek supermarket chain *

Allen-Bradley Allen-Bradley is the brand-name of a line of factory automation equipment owned by Rockwell Automation. The company, with revenues of approximately US $6.4 1,000,000,000 (number), billion in 2013, manufactures programmable logic controllers ( ...

, a brand of industrial control products, manufactured by Rockwell Automation *

AllianceBernstein AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. (AB) is a global asset management firm providing investment management and research services worldwide to institutional, high-net-worth and Investor, retail investors. AllianceBernstein's headquarters are located ...

(New York Stock Exchange Symbol AB), a US-based asset management firm * American Biograph (film logo AB), a former motion picture company *

Anheuser-Busch Anheuser-Busch Companies, LLC ( ) is an American brewing company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Since 2008, it has been wholly owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (AB InBev), now the world's largest brewing company, which owns multiple ...

, a brewing company *

Bonza Bonza Aviation Pty Ltd, operating as Bonza, was a short-lived Australian low-cost airline, headquartered on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Sunshine Coast. Founded in October 2021, Bonza commenced operations on 31 January 2023. The airline ente ...

(IATA code AB), an Australian airline

Linguistics

* Ab (cuneiform), a written syllable *

Ab (Semitic) Ab or Av (related to Akkadian ''abu''), sometimes Abba, means "father" in most Semitic languages. Arabic ''’Ab'' (), from a theoretical, abstract form ( ''ʼabaʼun'') (triliteral ʼ- b- w) is Arabic for "father". The dual is ( ''ʼabawān ...

, a Semitic word for "father" * ''ab'', a

Welsh patronymic A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (more specifically an avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor. It is the male equivalent of a matronymic. Patronymics are used, b ...

Ap (water) ''Ap'' (') is the Vedic Sanskrit term for "water", which in Classical Sanskrit only occurs in the plural ' (sometimes re-analysed as a thematic singular, '), whence Hindi '. The term is from Proto Indo-European "water".The word has many cognate ...

, Vedic Sanskti term for water, surviving as In Persian as Āb

Occupations and ranks

Able Seaman (occupation) An able seaman (AB) is a seaman and member of the deck department of a merchant ship with more than two years' experience at sea and considered "well acquainted with his duty". An AB may work as a watchstander, a day worker, or a combination ...

, a civilian occupation * Able Seaman (rank), a naval rank * Airman Basic, the lowest rank in the United States Air Force

Organizations

Afrikaner Broederbond The Afrikaner Broederbond (AB) or simply the Broederbond was an exclusively Afrikaner Calvinist and male secret society in South Africa dedicated to the advancement of the Afrikaner people. It was founded by H. J. Klopper, H. W. van der Merw ...

, a South African secret society from 1918 to 1994 *

Aryan Brotherhood The Aryan Brotherhood (AB or The Brand) is a neo-Nazi prison gang and an organized crime syndicate that is based in the United States and has an estimated 15,000–20,000 members both inside and outside prisons. The Southern Poverty Law Center ...

, an American gang

Places

Anzab-e Olya Anzab-e Olya () is a village in Kalkhuran Rural District of the Central District in Ardabil County, Ardabil province, Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. ...

or Āb, a village in Iran *

AB postcode area The AB postcode area, also known as the Aberdeen postcode area Royal Mail, ''Address Management Guide'', (2004) is a group of 33 postcode districts in north-east Scotland, within 24 post towns. These cover the Aberdeen council area (including t ...

, UK, including Aberdeen, Scotland *

Albania Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...

(WMO country code) *

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

(Canadian Province/Territory Code) * Air Base, used by the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

for overseas bases *

Aschaffenburg Aschaffenburg (; Hessian: ''Aschebersch'', ) is a town in northwest Bavaria, Germany. The town of Aschaffenburg, despite being its administrative seat, is not part of the district of Aschaffenburg. Aschaffenburg belonged to the Archbishopric ...

(vehicle registration plate), Germany

Science and technology

* AB (star catalogue) (Azzopardi / Breysacher), a catalogue of Wolf Rayet stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud *

Aggregate base Aggregate or aggregates may refer to: Computing and mathematics * Aggregate (data warehouse), a part of the dimensional model that is used to speed up query time by summarizing tables * Aggregate analysis, a technique used in amortized analysis i ...

* AB Class amplifier, a classification of electric

amplifier An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the magnitude of a signal (a time-varying voltage or current). It is a two-port electronic circuit that uses electric power from a power su ...

Category of abelian groups In mathematics, the category Ab has the abelian groups as objects and group homomorphisms as morphisms. This is the prototype of an abelian category: indeed, every small abelian category can be embedded in Ab. Properties The zero object o ...

(Ab), in mathematics * ApacheBench, a command line tool for Apache HTTP Server

Chemistry

* Alabamine, a former name of the element astatine *

Albite Albite is a plagioclase feldspar mineral. It is the sodium endmember of the plagioclase solid solution series. It represents a plagioclase with less than 10% anorthite content. The pure albite endmember has the formula . It is a tectosilicat ...

, a feldspar mineral *

Ammonia borane Ammonia borane (also systematically named ammoniotrihydroborate), also called borazane, is the chemical compound with the formula . The colourless or white solid is the simplest molecular boron-nitrogen-hydride compound. It has attracted attention ...

, a chemical compound * Antibonding (a.b.), used to describe the character of orbitals in atomic and molecular

electronic structure Quantum chemistry, also called molecular quantum mechanics, is a branch of physical chemistry focused on the application of quantum mechanics to chemical systems, particularly towards the quantum-mechanical calculation of electronic contributions ...

Medicine

* AB blood, a blood type in the ABO blood group system *

AB toxin The AB toxins are two-component protein complexes secreted by a number of pathogenic bacteria, though there is a pore-forming AB toxin found in the eggs of a snail. They can be classified as Type III toxins because they interfere with internal ce ...

, Type III toxin secreted by some pathogenic bacteria *

Antibody An antibody (Ab) or immunoglobulin (Ig) is a large, Y-shaped protein belonging to the immunoglobulin superfamily which is used by the immune system to identify and neutralize antigens such as pathogenic bacteria, bacteria and viruses, includin ...

(medical abbreviation) *

Rectus abdominis muscle The rectus abdominis muscle, () also known as the "abdominal muscle" or simply better known as the "abs", is a pair of segmented skeletal muscle on the ventral aspect of a person's abdomen. The paired muscle is separated at the midline by a ba ...

(common name abs), a paired stomach muscle

Religion

* Ab (Egyptian heart-soul concept), a concept of the heart-soul in ancient Egyptian religion * Ab., a Hebrew abbreviation related to

Pirkei Avot Pirkei Avot (; also transliterated as ''Pirqei Avoth'' or ''Pirkei Avos'' or ''Pirke Aboth'', also ''Abhoth''), which translates into English as Chapters of the Fathers, is a compilation of the ethical teachings and maxims from Rabbinic Jewis ...

, a compilation of teachings and maxims from the Mishnaic period *

Aitareya Brahmana The Aitareya Brahmana () is the Brahmana of the Shakala Shakha of the Rigveda, an ancient Indian collection of sacred hymns. This work, according to the tradition, is ascribed to Mahidasa Aitareya. Authorship Sayana of Vijayanagara, a 14th ce ...

, an ancient Indian collection of sacred hymns

Sport

Akademisk Boldklub Akademisk Boldklub Gladsaxe (AB) is a Denmark, Danish professional football (soccer), football club from Gladsaxe north of Copenhagen, currently playing at the 3rd highest level of Danish domestic football in the Danish 2nd Division group 1. The ...

, a Danish professional football club *

Argja Bóltfelag Argja Bóltfelag (AB) is a Faroe Islands, Faroese Professional sports, professional football Football team, club based in Argir. In 2020, they were playing their third season in the Faroe Islands Premier League, after being promoted from 1. deil ...

, a Faroese association football club *

Aviron Bayonnais Aviron Bayonnais (AB, ), commonly called Bayonne, is a French rugby union club from Bayonne (''Baiona'' in Basque) in Pyrénées-Atlantiques which competes in the Top 14, the top tier of the National Rugby League (France), French league system. ...

, French rugby union club *

At bat In baseball, an at bat (AB) or time at bat is a batter's turn batting against a pitcher. An at bat is different from a plate appearance. A batter is credited with a plate appearance regardless of what happens upon completion of his turn at bat, ...

, in baseball statistics

Transportation

* NZR Ab class, a New Zealand steam locomotive * Armed boarding steamer, used by the UK during World War I for boarding enemy vessels * AB, a US Navy hull classification symbol: Crane ship (AB)

People

AB de Villiers Abraham Benjamin de Villiers (born 17 February 1984) is a South African former international cricketer. He is regarded as one of the greatest batters of his generation. de Villiers was named as the ODI Player of the Year three times during h ...

(born 1984), South African middle order batsman and wicket-keeper * Adrien Broner (born 1989), American Boxer, nicknamed AB *

Allan Border Allan Robert Border (born 27 July 1955) is an Australian cricket commentator and former international cricketer. A batsman, Border was for many years the Captain (cricket), captain of the Australia national cricket team, Australian team, and l ...

(born 1955), Australian cricketer, nicknamed A.B. *

Antonio Brown Antonio Tavaris Brown Sr. (born July 10, 1988), nicknamed "AB", is an American former professional American football, football wide receiver who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 12 seasons. During his first nine seasons with t ...

(born 1988), American football player, nicknamed AB

Other uses

Ab (given name) Ab is a Dutch language, Dutch and English language, English (primarily Canadian) masculine given name. It usually is short form (hypocorism) of Albert (given name), Albert and occasionally of Abraham or Abbott (disambiguation), Abbott. The following ...

, a short form of Albert (or occasionally Abraham or Abbott) * Ab (Mandaean month), a month of the Mandaean calendar * AB, a South Australian dish made of hot potato chips, gyro meat and sauces, similar to a Halal snack pack *

Abkhaz language Abkhaz, also known as Abkhazian, is a Northwest Caucasian languages, Northwest Caucasian language most closely related to Abaza language, Abaza. It is spoken mostly by the Abkhazians, Abkhaz people. It is one of the official languages of Abkhazi ...

(ISO 639-1 language code ab), a Northwest Caucasian language spoken mostly by the Abkhaz people * Adult baby, a person who practices paraphilic infantilism *

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

(Latin: ''Artium baccalaureus'') * Assembly Bill, a type of legislation in the US *

AB (game) AB, a variant of the board game Mastermind (board game), Mastermind, is a number guessing game involving two players. The codemaker makes a four-digit number with no repeats, and the codebreaker tries to guess this number in as few moves as possibl ...

, a guessing game similar to ''Mastermind''