kid
noun
a child or young person.
Trivia Time
Which actor portrayed the Sundance Kid in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?
kid
1 American
[kid]
/ kɪd /
noun
-
kids
plural
-
Informal. a child or young person.
-
(used as a familiar form of address.)
-
a young goat.
-
leather made from the skin of a kid or goat, used in making shoes and gloves.
-
a glove made from this leather.
verb (used with or without object)
kidded,
kidding
kid
2
American
[kid]
/ kɪd /
Kid
3
American
[kid]
/ kɪd /
noun
kid
1
British
/ kɪd /
noun
-
the young of a goat or of a related animal, such as an antelope
-
soft smooth leather made from the hide of a kid
-
informal
-
a young person; child
-
(modifier) younger or being still a child
kid brother
kid sister
-
-
dialect my younger brother or sister
verb
kid
2
British
/ kɪd /
verb
-
(tr) to tease or deceive for fun
-
(intr) to behave or speak deceptively for fun
-
(tr) to delude or fool (oneself) into believing (something)
don't kid yourself that no-one else knows
Kid
3
British
/ kɪd /
noun
kid
4
British
/ kɪd /
noun
kid
Idioms
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of kid1
First recorded in 1150–1200; Middle English kide, from Old Norse kith
Origin of kid2
First recorded in 1805–15; perhaps special use of kid 1
Explanation
If a farmer offers to introduce you to her kid, you might not know if she means her child or her baby goat. A kid is a child, informally, and it's also a young goat. Sometimes the word kid means a kind of soft leather made from goat skin. When kid is used as a verb, it means to tease or jokingly deceive someone — to kid them. Some sticklers for formality object to using kid to mean "child," but that meaning has been around since the 1590s. The "teasing" definition of kid comes from the sense of "treat like a child."
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:
His announcement that he intends to give one SpaceX share to “every kid in America” next year is more than an extraordinary act of generosity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 3, 2026
Brown, who grew up in Alice Springs, said he never dreamed as a kid that he would be riding the Melbourne Cup, but he had been given "a lot of great support" in his career.
From BBC ● Nov. 3, 2026
“In my head, I know I need to stop,” Messier said in a September interview before parting with the company, “but it’s my kid, what am I supposed to do?”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 3, 2026
He said, “Come on in, kid — I hope you got some good songs.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 2, 2026
What will happen to those laws if I save this kid?
From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold
The latest back and forth between Trump and Maher stemmed from a mid-October White House dinner with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith and musician Kid Rock.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 31, 2026
In the dirge-like “Ghosts of Greater Men,” he refers to Billy the Kid, Neil Armstrong and George Jones as lingering spirits at this time when “We’re starving for something that’s better than this.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2026
Reputation-wise, the collaboration does far more for Kid Rock than it does for Eminem.
From Salon ● Oct. 21, 2026
Lamar was nominated for his striking debut “Good Kid, M.A.A.D City.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026
Head-to-head's where Kid A solves a problem on the left of the blackboard while Kid B solves the same problem on the right, like a race.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
“It was street kids, Hispanic kids. All of a sudden, the fans were realizing, ‘Wait a minute — this music represents us, the artists look like us.’
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 5, 2026
"Keep in mind that we used the actual start time listed for each school, and a lot of schools offer breakfast or other things before school, so the kids could be getting there even earlier."
From Science Daily ● Nov. 4, 2026
"I'm feeling elated. The kids are all right. I was concerned about them. They didn't seem very engaged, but I was wrong. They showed up."
From Barron's ● Nov. 4, 2026
And Blake seems unsure about whether he’s ready to settle down and have kids.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 3, 2026
“You’re going already? You just got here. There’s a little mixer after this, and there’s nonalcoholic stuff for the kids to drink.”
From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold
This claim of passivity kidded nobody except maybe himself.
From Slate ● Jun. 16, 2025
Sojobi kidded with the new grandmother that she had grown new gray hairs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2023
On a flight to Chicago, Devers kidded Bello he would hit two homers on Friday.
From Washington Times ● Jul. 15, 2023
The charming, comic sequence in which Elliott’s mother overlooks E.T. among a closetful of stuffed animals both kidded and celebrated the character’s potential take-home commodification; Spielberg was now also in the toy business.
From New York Times ● Aug. 4, 2022
“You sent me to bed without a story last night,” Maniac kidded.
From "Maniac Magee" by Jerry Spinelli
"I will let you keep ice hockey, and I will let you keep your 'O Canada' national anthem," he promised before adding: "We're only kidding."
From BBC ● Oct. 20, 2026
The man wasn’t kidding when he told us he’d figured something out.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026
“Seventy-five percent of the time Adrian and I would be walking around and say, ‘Are you kidding me?’”
From Salon ● Sep. 25, 2026
You’re not kidding when you say there’s a lot to think about!
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 26, 2026
I glanced at him to see if he was kidding around.
From "Keep It Together, Keiko Carter" by Debbi Michiko Florence
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
