Labs

A lab is a room or building where science experiments, tests, and research are done. Most high schools have science labs for biology and chemistry classes.

Lab is shorthand for laboratory, with its Medieval Latin root laboratorium, "a place for labor or work," from the Latin laborare, "to work." Many scientists and researchers go to work each day in a lab (often wearing a "lab coat," a white smock that protects their clothes).

Some labs are equipped for studying the way plants grow and reproduce, while in others scientists study the brainwaves of human subjects or the traits of a virus. If you are a scientist, chances are you hang out in a lab.