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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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
International pressure has been increasing on the backers of this conflict to disengage as aid agencies estimate that more than 28 million people in Suan are facing acute hunger.
From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026
Meanwhile the team's plan to aid the natterjack toad is to try and figure out how to best reverse the degradation of Cumbria's sand dunes.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
The US Embassy said it has delivered 100,000 aid kits to the affected communities.
From Barron's ● Jul. 12, 2026
In recent days, Rodríguez has been visiting field hospitals and thanking a list of some 30 foreign nations for health aid after the disaster.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 11, 2026
He insisted that imposing political order on Haiti, no matter how much financial aid was provided, wouldn’t improve the problems of poverty and disease.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
"Deploying Artificial Intelligence in Services to AID Vulnerable Consumers" is published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 18, 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
As access to schooling expands, inequality as measured by the AID rises because the population now contains many people who have no education and many who have several years of schooling.
From Nature ● Apr. 14, 2020
By midmorning, a line snaked out the door of AID Atlanta’s Midtown clinic.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 17, 2019
“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
America also works “with the Vatican and the Catholic Church to deliver food and medicine to the needy. Aid that we also provided—additional aid after the most recent hurricane.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
At an annual meeting of financial-aid administrators hosted by the Education Department’s Office of Federal Student Aid earlier this year, people who work in college financial aid barraged government officials with questions about the change.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 1, 2026
Aid deliveries that reached the camp weeks ago have dwindled as services across the city are repeatedly hit.
From Barron's ● Jun. 29, 2026
Global health programming in general is moving at a much slower rate than it did previously, according to the Aid on the Hill analysis of federal funding data.
From Salon ● Jun. 23, 2026
I fold up the three dresses I made, one of which, the blue chambray, I haven’t finished, plus my other dress from the Children’s Aid.
From "Orphan Train" by Christina Baker Kline
Services that "do not involve ongoing emotional interaction" such as customer service, work assistants or study aids are not subject to the measures.
From Barron's ● Jul. 15, 2026
When he recently took his in-laws to get fitted for new hearing aids, he popped open his laptop and used a hot spot to send emails and edit video in time to meet a deadline.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 23, 2026
He was becoming profoundly deaf and now sported bright pink hearing aids, but his work had made him wealthy.
From BBC ● Jun. 12, 2026
When hearing loss in middle age drove him to rely on hearing aids, he credited the affliction with sharpening his awareness of the world around him—and enhancing his art.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
People didn’t realize that the aids thing had only just begun.
From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston
SCG Chemical’s earnings should be aided by improved spreads for high-density polyethylene, polypropylene and polyvinyl chloride, the analyst says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
Silence Is Talking by Reverend & The Makers is reborn as the terrace anthem, aided by the trumpeter in the England band playing the familiar riff taken from War's 1975 song Low Rider.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
The three of them will be aided by Fed staff.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 9, 2026
Thousands of Indian sailors have left the Gulf since the war began, including more than 3,600 aided by the South Asian nation's shipping ministry.
From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026
Estraven had got his hands onto the edge, and his weight now aided me.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
She explained the volunteers - or community welfare responders - are trained to monitor things such as blood pressure and oxygen levels, aiding the decision-making of clinicians back at base.
From BBC ● Jul. 15, 2026
Two days after the blaze at Lineage Logistics’ cold storage facility ignited on June 17, Robb began working for the company, aiding with communications consulting, he confirmed to The Times.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2026
Although this latest trial has shown it is superior for controlling blood sugar and aiding weight loss, its higher rate of side-effects and treatment discontinuation may temper enthusiasm.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 8, 2026
For one — and “most critical historically,” according to Deutsche Bank — the U.S. benefited from 200 years of institutional and political stability that helped shore up confidence in its capital markets, aiding economic growth.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 28, 2026
He may have wanted the British to know at least some secrets so that England, fearing that France was close to aiding America, would decide to end the war.
From "George Washington, Spymaster" by Thomas B. Allen
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.
