Fab is short for fabulous: great, wonderful, amazing: a fab evening, you look fab! It sounds light and warm, especially in British speech and messages. In a review or work email, use excellent or great. In tech news, a fab is a noun: a factory that makes microchips.
Could you drop fab into a text?
Write a short message — we'll show the mistakes right away and suggest how to say it more naturally.
The check is taking longer than usual. Your feedback will appear here automatically.
a fab evening / idea; look / sound fab; That's fab!
- We had a fab afternoon making paper boats with the children.
- Your suggestion sounds fab; let's book the room.
- Those green curtains look fab against the white walls.
What changed
First versionThe concert was a fab!
RevisionThe concert was fab!
A short word after was can look like a noun, as in was a hit or was a success, so an a slips in: was a fab. But fab is an adjective, and after was it takes no article: the concert was fab. The article comes back when a noun follows: a fab concert.
Fabulous is the full form and sounds brighter and grander. Great is the all-purpose “excellent”. Fab is light, casual praise, while a fab in a technical text is a semiconductor fab, a factory.
Your turn
Use fab to mean wonderful: The costumes looked ___.
Show the answer
fab — After looked you need the adjective fab, with no article. A fab is a noun with a completely different meaning.
Briefly praise an activity you enjoyed. Use fab and add one reason.
The workshop was fab because we all left with a finished wooden toy.
Learn to use new words without mistakes
Write phrases with the words you are learning. LetsWords shows mistakes in usage and grammar, suggests corrections and explains them, and review helps the words stick.