aid

UK/eɪd/

aid noun: help; assistance; succor, relief. Also the alternative form of aide.

Noun (1)

aid (countable and uncountable, plural aids)

(uncountable) Help; assistance; succor, relief.
- He came to my aid when I was foundering.
- An unconstitutional method of obtaining aid.1827, Henry Hallam, The Constitutional History of England from the Accession of Henry VII. to the Death of George II. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: John Murray, […], →OCLC
(countable) A helper; an assistant.
- It is not good that man should bee alone, let vs make vnto him an aide like to himselfe.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Tobit 8:6
(countable) Something which helps; a material source of help.
- Slimming aids include dietary supplements and appetite suppressants.
- The human is so poorly designed for aquatic adventures that he cannot even see in the water without artificial aids.1983, Richard Ellis, The Book of Sharks, Knopf, →ISBN, page 16
(UK, countable) An historical subsidy granted to the crown by Parliament for an extraordinary purpose, such as a war effort.
- In this parliament was granted to the king for defence against the Scots two aids and two quindecims, the which two aids did not extend over two quindecims.2019, Julia Boffey, Henry VII's London in the Great Chronicle, page 71
(UK, countable) An exchequer loan.
(countable) A pecuniary tribute paid by a vassal to his feudal lord on special occasions.
(countable, in plural) The rider's use of hands, legs, voice, etc. to control the horse.

Verb

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

(transitive) To provide support to; to further the progress of; to help; to assist.
- You speedy helpers […] Appear and aid me in this enterprise.1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
- 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.2012 May 24, Nathan Rabin, “Film: Reviews: Men In Black 3”, in The Onion AV Club, archived from the original on 18 Aug 2012
To climb with the use of aids such as pitons.
- Rather than climb into a bottomless off-width crack, we aided an 80-foot A2 to A3 crack to the top of a pedestal. By very tenuous face climbing, we gained entry to the crack, which we followed to a tree beneath the big chimney.1979, American Alpine Journal, page 193

Noun (2) capitalized: AID

AID (uncountable)

(abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of artificial insemination by donor.
- Here is the first book to thoroughly look at topics such as the social and personal aspects of lesbian motherhood; the implications of AID; and how children feel about growing up with lesbian mothers.1982 February 6, “Book News From Alyson Publications (advertisement)”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 28, page 21

Proper noun capitalized: AID

AID

(abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of Agency for International Development.
- The first such title, according to a review by Christopher Sagers, a law professor at Cleveland–Marshall College of Law, was the 1950 Act for International Development, or AID.2022 November 12, Matteo Wong, “How Did America End Up With the Z.O.M.B.I.E. Act?”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 12 Nov 2022

Also used as

aid is also the alternative form of aide.

aid meaning in Hindi, Telugu, Tagalog and Arabic

aid in Hindi

help; succor; assistance; relief: मदद madad, सहायता sahāytā

aid in Telugu

help; succor; assistance; relief: సహాయము sahāyamu

aid in Tagalog

help; succor; assistance; relief: ayuda
something which helps; a material source of help: ayuda

aid in Arabic

help; succor; assistance; relief: مُسَاعَدَة musāʕada

More languagesFewer languages

aid in Malay: pertolongan

Examples of aid in a sentence

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.”1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
Musk said he checked with Trump “a few times” and Trump confirmed he wants to shut down the agency, which dispenses billions in humanitarian aid and development funding annually.2025 February 2, Jennifer Hansler and Alex Marquardt, “Senior USAID security officials put on leave after attempting to refuse Musk’s DOGE...
Scribes, illuminators, and scholars held such stones directly over manuscript pages as an aid in seeing what was being written, drawn, or read.2013 September-October, Henry Petroski, “The Evolution of Eyeglasses”, in American Scientist:

All 40 example sentences with aid

Synonyms of aid

2 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of aid

Forms of aid

Noun
plural	aids
alternative form	aide
alternative form (obsolete)	ayde
Verb
third-person singular present	aids
present participle	aiding
past participle	aided
past	aided

Past tense of aid: aided

Plural of aid: aids

Origin of aid

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

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

Words formed from aid

Phrases with aid

4 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with aid

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about aid

What does aid mean?: Aid means help; assistance; succor, relief.
What is aid in Hindi?: Aid in Hindi is मदद (madad), सहायता (sahāytā). See Aid meaning in Hindi.
How do you use aid in a sentence?: 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.”
What part of speech is aid?: Aid can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce aid?: Aid is pronounced /eɪd/ (UK).
What is the plural of aid?: The plural of aid is aids.

Words near aid in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: aid (page history and authors); AID (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-aid.ogg.

Cite this entry: “aid.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/aid. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.