kid on the square
kid on the square verb: to be joking, but at the same time really mean it.
Verb
kid on the square (third-person singular simple present kids on the square, present participle kidding on the square, simple past and past participle kidded on the square)
- To be joking, but at the same time really mean it.
- "I'm kiddin' on the square," said Hanks.1907, Alfred Damon Runyon, “The Defense of Strikerville”, in McClure's Magazine, volume 28, page 379
- So I always knew what Pierce meant, in a kidding-on-the-square kind of way.1977, Dan Rather, Mickey Herskowitz, The Camera Never Blinks, →ISBN, page 66
- Synonyms:
- ha ha only serious
Synonyms of kid on the square
Forms of kid on the square
| third-person singular present | kids on the square |
|---|---|
| present participle | kidding on the square |
| past participle | kidded on the square |
| past | kidded on the square |
Origin of kid on the square
Dates back to the early 20th century. Later popularized by Mose Allison in his 1983 song "Kidding on the Square" on the album Middle Class White Boy (described in the liner notes as "joking with serious intent") and later by Al Franken describing the negative reaction of Paul Wolfowitz to one of his jokes in the 2003 book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.
Questions about kid on the square
- What does kid on the square mean?
- Kid on the square means to be joking, but at the same time really mean it.
- What part of speech is kid on the square?
- Kid on the square is a verb.
- What is the past tense of kid on the square?
- The past tense of kid on the square is kidded on the square.
Words near kid on the square in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: kid on the square (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:
Cite this entry: “kid on the square.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kid_on_the_square. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.