aid

• aide

• (Received Pronunciation)
  • IPA^(key): /eɪd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪd
• Homophone: aide

Borrowed from French aide, from Old French eide, aide, from aidier, from Latin adiūtō, adiūtāre (“to assist, help”). Cognates include Spanish ayuda, Portuguese ajuda and Italian aiuto

aid (countable and uncountable, plural aids)

1. (uncountable) Help; assistance; succor, relief.

   He came to my aid when I was foundering.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Henry Hallam

     An unconstitutional mode of obtaining aid.

   • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 639762314, page 0029:

     “[…] it is not fair of you to bring against mankind double weapons ! Dangerous enough you are as woman alone, without bringing to your aid those gifts of mind suited to problems which men have been accustomed to arrogate to themselves.”

2. (countable) A helper; an assistant.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Tobit viii. 6

     It is not good that man should be alone; let us make unto him an aid like unto himself.

3. (countable) Something which helps; a material source of help.
   • 1983, Richard Ellis, The Book of Sharks, Knopf, →ISBN, page 16:

     The human is so poorly designed for aquatic adventures that he cannot even see in the water without artificial aids.

   • 2013 September-October, Henry Petroski, “The Evolution of Eyeglasses”, in American Scientist:

     The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone […]. Scribes, illuminators, and scholars held such stones directly over manuscript pages as an aid in seeing what was being written, drawn, or read.

   Slimming aids include dietary supplements and appetite suppressants.

4. (countable, Britain) An historical subsidy granted to the crown by Parliament for an extraordinary purpose, such as a war effort.
5. (countable, Britain) An exchequer loan.
6. (countable, law) A pecuniary tribute paid by a vassal to his feudal lord on special occasions.
7. (countable) An aide-de-camp, so called by abbreviation.

   The incompetent general's brilliant aid often made priceless suggestions.

From Middle English aiden, from Old French eider, aider, aidier, from Latin adiuto, frequentative of adiuvō (“"assist"”, verb).

aid (third-person singular simple present aids, present participle aiding, simple past and past participle aided)

1. (transitive) To (give) support (to); to further the progress of; to help; to assist.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Shakespeare

     You speedy helpers […] Appear and aid me in this enterprise.

   • 2012 May 24, Nathan Rabin, “Film: Reviews: Men In Black 3”, in The Onion AV Club‎:

     Smith is aided in his quest by an elfin, time-jumping alien with psychic powers played by another Coen brothers veteran, A Serious Man star Michael Stuhlbarg.

• assist
• befriend
• bestand
• cooperate
• help
• promote
• relieve
• succor
• support
• sustain
• See also Thesaurus:help or Thesaurus:serve

• aidable
• aidance
• aider
• unaided

• aidant
• aide-de-camp

• -iad, Adi, DIA, Dai, Dia, I'da, IAD, Ida, dai, dia-

aid

1. woman

• Hans van der Meer, Bau Organized Phonology Data

From Proto-Finnic *aita.

aid

1. fence

• IPA^(key): /ʔaɪɗ/

aid

1. woman

• Panim Talking Dictionary

From Proto-Finnic *aita.

aid

1. fence

• aidverai

• Zajceva, N. G.; Mullonen, M. I. (2007), “забор, изгородь, ограда”, in Uz’ venä-vepsläine vajehnik / Novyj russko-vepsskij slovarʹ [New Russian–Veps Dictionary], Petrozavodsk: Periodika

From Proto-Finnic *aita.

aid (genitive aia, partitive aida)

1. garden