help or support; assistance.
a person or thing that aids or furnishes assistance; helper; auxiliary.
Manège. aids,
Also called natural aids. the means by which a rider communicates with and controls a horse, as the hands, legs, voice, and shifts in weight.
Also called artificial aids. the devices used by a rider to increase control of a horse, as spurs, whip, and martingale.
a payment made by feudal vassals to their lord on special occasions.
English History. (after 1066) any of several revenues received by a king in the Middle Ages from his vassals and other subjects, limited by the Magna Charta to specified occasions.
American Institute of Decorators.
American Institute of Interior Designers.
British. artificial insemination donor. Also A.I.D.
to give support to (someone to do something); help or assist
(tr) to assist financially
assistance; help; support
a person, device, etc, that helps or assists
a teaching aid
Also: artificial aid. mountaineering any of various devices such as piton or nut when used as a direct help in the ascent
(in medieval Europe; in England after 1066) a feudal payment made to the king or any lord by his vassals, usually on certain occasions such as the marriage of a daughter or the knighting of an eldest son
informal in support of; for the purpose of
acute infectious disease
artificial insemination (by) donor: former name for Donor Insemination (DI)
Although the nouns aid and aide both have among their meanings “an assisting person,” the spelling aide is increasingly used for the sense “helper, assistant”: One of the senator's aides is calling. Aide in military use is short for aide-de-camp. It is also the spelling in nurse's aide.
See help.
First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English noun aide, eide, from Anglo-French, Old French aide, derivative of verb aid(i)er, from Latin adjūtāre “to help”; see also adjuvant ( def. )
A(gency for) I(nternational) D(evelopment)
Aid is what you do when you help someone — you come to their aid. Rich countries provide economic aid to poor countries, and if you cut your hand, you'll be looking in the first aid kit for a Band-Aid. You can also use aid as a verb: "The librarian will aid you in your search." English has some words with meanings related to aid, but they're spelled with an -e on the end, because they come from the French. A nurse's aide is someone who assists a nurse. An aide-de-camp is a close assistant and confidant to a military officer, a word often shortened to just aide, to refer to an assistant to a political official.
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Furthermore, tea's role in weight management and its potential in controlling diabetes are discussed, with evidence suggesting that green tea catechins can aid in weight reduction and improve metabolic parameters in obese individuals.
From Science Daily • Jun. 9, 2026
Aid returning to Ituri with Ebola-specific funding would be more effective if public health aid simply hadn’t left in the first place.
From Slate • Jun. 9, 2026
China and North Korea have a military alliance centred on a 1961 treaty obliging each side to come to the other's aid in the event of an armed attack.
From Barron's • Jun. 9, 2026
The U.S. is delivering roughly $4 billion of arms to Taiwan a year, which means that it could take a decade at the current pace to deliver all promised aid.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 8, 2026
He had passed the point of no return: He had given aid and comfort to Abraham Lincoln’s killers and now he lied about it to protect them.
From "Chasing Lincoln's Killer" by James L. Swanson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
