Word.ws English Dictionary

kid

/ˈkɪd/

kid noun: a child, adolescent, or (loosely) a young adult.

kid: a child, adolescent, or (loosely) a young adult
Image: Benjamint, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

kid (countable and uncountable, plural kids)

  1. (informal) A child, adolescent, or (loosely) a young adult.
    • She's a kid. It's normal for her to have imaginary friends.
    • “So you’ve got the kid,” said Sikes, when they had all reached the room: closing the door as he spoke. ¶ “Yes, here he is,” replied Nancy. ¶ “Did he come quiet?” inquired Sikes. ¶ “Like a lamb,” rejoined Nancy.1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], “Wherein Oliver Is Delivered over to Mr. William Sikes”, in Oliver Twist; […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 12
    1. (informal) A person whose childhood took place in a particular time period or area.
      • Only '90s kids will remember this toy.
      • He's been living in Los Angeles for years now, but he's a Florida kid.
    2. (informal) One's son or daughter, regardless of age.
      • This is Bobby, he is our youngest kid.
    3. (informal) Used as a form of address for a child, teenager or young adult.
      • Here's looking at you, kid.1942, Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Howard Koch, Casablanca, spoken by Rick (Humphrey Bogart)
    4. (colloquial, informal) An inexperienced person or one in a junior position.
      • I remember as a kid lawyer working at IBM in the summer of 1983, when a large insurance company in Hartford, Connecticut, for the first time asked to buy 12000 IBM PCs in a single order.2007 June 3, Eben Moglen, speech, Freeing the Mind: Free Software and the end of proprietary culture
  2. A young goat.
    • He treated the oxen like they didn't exist, but he treated the goat kid like a puppy.
    • I went indeed intending to kill a Kid out of my own Flock, and bring him home and dreſs it. But as I was going, I ſaw a She Goat lying down in the Shade, and two young Kids ſitting by her, […]1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC, page 249
    1. (uncountable) Kidskin.
      • I have three pairs of kid gloves. I've had kid mittens before from the Christmas tree, but never real kid gloves with five fingers.1912, Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs: Letter 3
    2. (uncountable) The meat of a young goat.
      • So saying, he gathered together, and brought to a flame, the decaying brands which lay scattered on the ample hearth; took from the larger board a mess of pottage and seethed kid, placed it upon the small table at which he had himself supped, and without waiting the Jew's thanks, went to the other...1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter VII, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, pages...
  3. A young antelope.
  4. (dated) A deception; an act of kidding somebody.
  5. A small wooden mess tub in which sailors received their food.
    • peaceable, well-disposed chaps as ever eat duff (dough) out of a kid1830, James Fenimore Cooper, The Water-witch, Or, The Skimmer of the Seas
    • We fasted till night, when one of the boys came along with a couple of "kids" containing a thin, saffron-coloured fluid, with oily particles floating on top. The young wag told us this was soup: it turned out to be nothing more than oleaginous warm water.1847 March 30, Herman Melville, “Reception from the Frenchman”, in Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas; […], London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 109

Verb

kid (third-person singular simple present kids, present participle kidding, simple past and past participle kidded)

  1. (colloquial, participle, present, transitive, usually) To dupe or deceive.
    • Are you kidding me?
    • I kid you not!
    1. (colloquial, participle, present, transitive, usually) To deceive or dupe as a joke.
      • Stop kidding me! It's not funny.
    2. (colloquial, participle, present, reflexive, transitive, usually) To deceive oneself by having unrealistic expectations.
      • You're kidding yourself if you think you can be a rockstar.
  2. (colloquial, participle, present, transitive, usually) To mock or make a fool of (someone) in a playful way.
    • They were always kidding her for her stutter.
  3. (colloquial, intransitive, participle, present, usually) To joke.
    • You must be kidding!
    • I'm only kidding!
  4. (intransitive) Of a goat: to give birth.
    • That nanny over there with the white tail has kidded every year for the last five years.
    • "They can kid twice a year if things are right, and they often throw twins and triplets."2008, Monte Dwyer, Red In The Centre: The Australian Bush Through Urban Eyes, Monyer Pty Ltd, page 200

Noun (2)

kid (plural kids)

  1. (UK, dialectal) A seed pod, usually of a leguminous plant.

Noun (3)

kid (plural kids)

  1. (dated) Synonym of faggot (“bundle of heath and furze”).
    • Now, for as much as this Fowle is a great deſtruction vnto the young Spawne or Frie of Fiſh, it ſhall bee good for the preſeruation thereof, to ſtake down into the bottomes of your Ponds good long Kids or Faggots of bruſh-woods, […]1631, Gervase Markham, Countrey Contentments, 4th edition, page 99
    Synonyms:
    faggot

Proper noun capitalized: KID

the KID

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of King's Indian Defence.

kid meaning in Hindi, Telugu, Punjabi and Sanskrit

kid in Hindi

child (colloq.)
बच्चा baccā, बच्ची baccī

kid in Telugu

young goat
మేకపిల్ల mēkapilla

kid in Punjabi

young goat
ਮੇਮਣਾ memṇā

kid in Sanskrit

child (colloq.)
शिशु śiśu, बालक bālaka, जात jāta
More languagesFewer languages
kid in Tagalog
bata, batang kambing
kid in Arabic
طِفْل ṭifl, جَدْي jady
kid in Indonesian
anak, anak kambing
kid in Persian
بچه bačče, بزغاله bozġâle, هیرک hirak
kid in Thai
ล้อเล่น lɔ́ɔ-lên
kid in Vietnamese
nhóc, con nít
Kashmiri
مۄنٛگُر mọngur, مۄنٛگٕر mọngụr

Examples of kid in a sentence

  • I said, “I’ll send the first sane soul I meet to keep you company.” As luck would have it, I never met one,—only kids, and a baker, who wouldn’t leave his cart, or take it with him either.1897 March 13 – June 19, Richard Marsh [pseudonym; Richard Bernard Heldmann], “What the Tidings Were”, in The Beetle (The Adelphi Library...
  • "I should never dream of calling a kid like you a woman," said Digory loftily.1955, C[live] S[taples] Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew, London: The Bodley Head, →OCLC:
  • ‘No,’ said Luke, grinning at her. ‘You’re not dull enough! […] What about the kid’s clothes?1963, Margery Allingham, “The Beanspiller”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 186:
  • Our kids are why all of you are in this room today.2007 July 5, Barack Obama, Remarks of Senator Barack Obama to the National Education Association Annual Meeting:

All 40 example sentences with kid

Synonyms of kid

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of kid

Forms of kid

Noun
pluralkids
Verb
third-person singular presentkids
present participlekidding
past participlekidded
pastkidded

Plural of kid: kids

Origin of kid

From Middle English kide, from Old Norse kið (“young goat”), from Proto-Germanic *kidją, *kittīną (“goatling, kid”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *gʰaydn-, *ǵʰaydn- (“goat”) or Proto-Indo-European *gidʰ- (“kid, goatling, little goat”). Compare Swedish and Danish kid, German Kitz and Kitze, Albanian kedh and kec. The sense of child has been in use since the 1590s as slang, and since the 1840s in informal use.

Of uncertain origin. Possibly from Middle English *kidde, from Old English *cydde (“pouch, belly”), from Proto-West Germanic *kuddijā, derived from or related to Proto-Germanic *kuddô (“bag, sack, pod, shell, husk”).

Compare Welsh cidysen.

Words formed from kid

Phrases with kid

37 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with kid

27 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about kid

What does kid mean?
Kid means a child, adolescent, or (loosely) a young adult.
What is kid in Hindi?
Kid in Hindi is बच्चा (baccā), बच्ची (baccī). See Kid meaning in Hindi.
How do you use kid in a sentence?
I said, “I’ll send the first sane soul I meet to keep you company.” As luck would have it, I never met one,—only kids, and a baker, who wouldn’t leave his cart, or take it with him either.
What part of speech is kid?
Kid can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce kid?
Kid is pronounced /ˈkɪd/.
What is the plural of kid?
The plural of kid is kids.

Words near kid in the dictionary

  1. kickwriting
  2. kickxellaceous
  3. kicky
  4. kicky-wickies
  5. kicky-wicky
  6. kid
  7. kid around
  8. kid brother
  9. kid brothers
  10. kid glove
  11. kid gloves

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kid (page history and authors); KID (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:

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

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