Abe

//eɪb// name, noun, verb, slang

name, noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A five-dollar bill. US, slang

    ""Gambling's not my form of masochism," said Carl. "Huh?" "So how much?" "The wad's mostly ones. Some Jeffersons. Two or three Abes.""

Verb
  1. 1
    To be. British, infinitive, intransitive, uncommon

    "Let it abe, I say."

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A diminutive of the male given name Abraham, from Hebrew.
  2. 2
    A surname from Japanese.
  3. 3
    Initialism of anyone but England: any team playing a sports match against the England team. Ireland, Scotland, Wales, abbreviation, alt-of, especially, humorous, initialism

    "As the World Cup starts, it is interesting to note the large number of people around the world cheering on ABE to win, including many millions of British."

Synonyms

All synonyms
abe lincolnabraham lincolnlincoln

Example

More examples

"May I introduce our sales manager, Abe?"

Etymology

Etymology 1

Shortened from Abraham. In the slang sense for money, refers to the picture of Abraham Lincoln on the currency.

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Japanese 阿部 (Abe), Japanese 安部 (Abe) or Japanese 安倍 (Abe).

Etymology 3

Probably a- + be.

Related phrases

Abe Lincolnanyone but england

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.