aid
1 Americanverb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
noun
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help or support; assistance.
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a person or thing that aids or furnishes assistance; helper; auxiliary.
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Manège. aids,
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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.
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Also called artificial aids. the devices used by a rider to increase control of a horse, as spurs, whip, and martingale.
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a payment made by feudal vassals to their lord on special occasions.
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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.
noun
abbreviation
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American Institute of Decorators.
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American Institute of Interior Designers.
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British. artificial insemination donor. Also A.I.D.
verb
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to give support to (someone to do something); help or assist
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(tr) to assist financially
noun
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assistance; help; support
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a person, device, etc, that helps or assists
a teaching aid
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Also: artificial aid. mountaineering any of various devices such as piton or nut when used as a direct help in the ascent
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(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
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informal in support of; for the purpose of
abbreviation
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acute infectious disease
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artificial insemination (by) donor: former name for Donor Insemination (DI)
combining form
Commonly Confused
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.
Synonym Usage
See help.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Conjugated Forms
Present
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have aidedperfect
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has aidedperfect 3rd person singular
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have been aidingperfect progressive
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am aidingprogressive 1st person singular
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has been aidingperfect progressive 3rd person singular
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aidingparticiple
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are aidingprogressive
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is aidingprogressive 3rd person singular
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aidssingular 3rd person
Past
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had aidedperfect
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aidedparticiple
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had been aidingperfect progressive
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were aidingprogressive plural
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was aidingprogressive singular
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aidedsimple
Future
Etymology
Origin of aid1
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. )
Origin of AID2
A(gency for) I(nternational) D(evelopment)
Explanation
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.
Vocabulary lists containing aid
Giving Words
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Their current focus is on developing innovative segmentation and clustering techniques for multivariate time series data tailored to uncover more granular patterns and handle the challenges posed by AID data.
From Science Daily • Nov. 27, 2024
AID official, was in East Africa to pledge aid to help the region’s fight against hunger amid a devastating multi-year drought.
From Seattle Times • Jul. 27, 2022
Percentages of employees asking for exemptions also vary, from 10.2 percent at the Department of Veterans Affairs to 1.3 percent at AID and the State Department.
From Washington Post • Nov. 24, 2021
As school enrolment becomes universal and members of the population begin to achieve similarly high levels of education, the AID declines again.
From Nature • Apr. 14, 2020
“Can you believe they even gave her that AID virus and injected her into monkeys?”
From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
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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.