hide
1 Americanverb (used with object)
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to conceal from sight; prevent from being seen or discovered.
Where did she hide her jewels?
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to obstruct the view of; cover up.
The sun was hidden by the clouds.
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to conceal from knowledge or exposure; keep secret.
to hide one's feelings.
verb (used without object)
noun
verb phrase
noun
-
the pelt or skin of one of the larger animals (cow, horse, buffalo, etc.), raw or dressed.
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Informal.
-
the skin of a human being.
Get out of here or I'll tan your hide!
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safety or welfare.
He's only worried about his own hide.
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Australia and New Zealand Informal. impertinence; impudence.
verb (used with object)
-
Informal. to administer a beating to; thrash.
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to protect (a rope, as a boltrope of a sail) with a covering of leather.
idioms
noun
verb
-
to put or keep (oneself or an object) in a secret place; conceal (oneself or an object) from view or discovery
to hide a pencil
to hide from the police
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(tr) to conceal or obscure
the clouds hid the sun
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(tr) to keep secret
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(tr) to turn (one's head, eyes, etc) away
noun
noun
-
the skin of an animal, esp the tough thick skin of a large mammal, either tanned or raw
-
informal the human skin
-
informal impudence
verb
noun
Synonym Usage
Hide, conceal, secrete mean to put out of sight or in a secret place. Hide is the general word: to hide one's money or purpose; A dog hides a bone. Conceal, somewhat more formal, is to cover from sight: A rock concealed them from view. Secrete means to put away carefully, in order to keep secret: The spy secreted the important papers.
See skin.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of hide1
First recorded before 900; Middle English hiden, Old English hȳdan; cognate with Old Frisian hūda; akin to Greek keúthein “to hide”; see also hide 2 ( def. )
Origin of hide2
First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English hȳd; cognate with Dutch huid, Old Norse hūth, Danish, Swedish hud, Old High German hūt ( German Haut ); akin to Latin cutis “skin,” Greek kýtos “hollow, container”; see also cutis, hide 1
Origin of hide3
First recorded before 900; Middle English hide, Old English hīd(e), hīg(i)d “portion of land, family,” from Germanic hīwidō; akin to Latin cīvis “citizen,” Greek keîsthai “to lie down, rest, remain, abide”
Explanation
You can hide your feelings or you can hide your mom’s birthday present. You can even hide yourself if you need to avoid someone. Whatever it is, when you hide something, you put it out of sight. Hide can mean that you keep something secret, like the way you really feel about your dad’s meatloaf. You can also hide something physical. If you spill juice on your white sofa, you can hide the stain with a pillow. Sometimes people hide also — that means the person stays out of sight. A bankrobber will hide from the police, or you might hide from your mom to avoid doing the dishes.
Vocabulary lists containing hide
Easter Vocabulary
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"We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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"When Cultures Meet"
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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.
See Examples For:
“We wanted to show that nobody can hide behind the whole organization,” he explained.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
Then check your emerging-markets fund, where South Korean memory makers like to hide.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 14, 2026
Since the pandemic, it’s not unusual for people to wear protective masks, so the renter will wear a mask to hide their identity from the kiosk camera.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 11, 2026
You can't hide any more in international cricket.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
He reeked of fear, though he was clearly trying to hide it from the others.
From "The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest" by Aubrey Hartman
He recalled visiting his mother in the hospital during her illness, describing how she hid her leg under a blanket and joked that doctors had mistakenly amputated it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 18, 2026
Watch the investigation into how Abramovich hid his fortune on BBC iPlayer.
From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026
When 11-year-old Guadalupe Rosales needed somewhere to escape, she hid at the East Los Angeles Library.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026
But in most of those earlier cases, presidents at least hid behind principle.
From Slate ● Aug. 31, 2026
I hid them in a pouch I had sewn in the folds of my robe.
From "The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams" by Daniel Nayeri
The Swimmer Turbine would launch directly from shore and remain absolutely hidden, generating electricity below the surface of the water.
From BBC ● Oct. 18, 2026
The results highlight the extraordinary precision of the telescope's design and offer a promising outlook for its upcoming investigations into the hidden structure and evolution of the universe.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 17, 2026
These are some of the prompts an engineer arrested by federal authorities last week is accused of submitting to an artificial intelligence chatbot to program a recording device hidden in an OpenAI conference room.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2026
Well, there’s a funny hidden message there, which is kind of discomforting if you really think about it.
From Salon ● Oct. 16, 2026
So I kept the gold hidden and hoped that the miller had only made a mistake with the sack of sawdust.
From "Rump: The (Fairly) True Story of Rumpelstilskin" by Liesl Shurtliff
The moment the sound of raucous singing had hided around the corner, he slipped out of the gate and ran in the opposite direction.
From "The Golden Goblet" by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
"She's hided, and we can't find her anywhere," repeated Zaidee.
From Cricket at the Seashore by Harriet Roosevelt Richards
She has never had a downright bad attack, like this one, therefore we could hide it from the servants and from Miss Annabel, but it couldn't be hided from him.
From The Story of Charles Strange Vol. 2 (of 3) A Novel by Mrs. Henry Wood
By a friendly Dutchman guided, A Van Eloff or De Vilier, They were promptly trapped and hided, In a manner too familiar.
From Songs Of The Road by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I’ve never hided you for collaring that pistol of mine.
From Tom, Dick and Harry by Talbot Baines Reed
Maybe emerging from hiding for the first time in seven years with a full-scale documentary team isn’t such a bad idea.
From Salon ● Oct. 17, 2026
Jurors heard concerns were first raised when officers visited the woman's home on an unrelated matter and found Tyrrell hiding beside her bed.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026
"But as the beam travels forward, spinning regions appear and separate out -- almost as if the spin was hiding and then revealed itself."
From Science Daily ● Oct. 13, 2026
“There’s no way to just keep painting over this and hiding the problem,” Sawitskas says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2026
And kept hiding out from the truth, even to myself.
From "The Red Car to Hollywood" by Jennie Liu
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
