kid

Definition of kid

20 senses · 3 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

(countable, informal, uncountable)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.”
“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.”
“"I should never dream of calling a kid like you a woman," said Digory loftily.”
“‘No,’ said Luke, grinning at her. ‘You’re not dull enough! […] What about the kid’s clothes? I don’t suppose they were anything to write home about, but didn’t you keep anything? A bootee or a bit of embroidery or anything at all?’”

See all 20 definitions

noun

(countable, informal, uncountable)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.”
“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.”
“"I should never dream of calling a kid like you a woman," said Digory loftily.”
“‘No,’ said Luke, grinning at her. ‘You’re not dull enough! […] What about the kid’s clothes? I don’t suppose they were anything to write home about, but didn’t you keep anything? A bootee or a bit of embroidery or anything at all?’”
(countable, informal, uncountable)A child, adolescent, or (loosely) a young adult.

“Only '90s kids will remember this toy.”
“He's been living in Los Angeles for years now, but he's a Florida kid.”
(countable, informal, uncountable)A child, adolescent, or (loosely) a young adult.

“This is Bobby, he is our youngest kid.”
(countable, informal, uncountable)A child, adolescent, or (loosely) a young adult.

“Here's looking at you, kid.”
(colloquial, countable, informal, uncountable)A child, adolescent, or (loosely) a young adult.

“2007 June 3, Eben Moglen, speech, Freeing the Mind: Free Software and the end of proprietary culture, 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.”
(countable, uncountable)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, […]”
“The lofty mountains roſe faint to the ſight and loſt their foreheads in the diſtant ſkies: the little hills, cloathed in darker green and ſkirted with embroidered vales, diſcovered the ſecret haunts of kids and bounding roes.”
(uncountable)A young goat.

“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.”
(uncountable)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 side of the hall;—[…].”
(countable, uncountable)A young antelope.
(countable, dated, uncountable)A deception; an act of kidding somebody.
(countable, uncountable)A small wooden mess tub in which sailors received their food.

“peaceable, well-disposed chaps as ever eat duff (dough) out of a kid”
“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.”
(UK, dialectal)A seed pod, usually of a leguminous plant.
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, […]”

verb

(colloquial, participle, present, transitive, usually)To dupe or deceive.

“Are you kidding me?”
“I kid you not!”
“"They are all very suspicious about the wording. I am always thinking up new ways of kidding them."”
(colloquial, participle, present, transitive, usually)To dupe or deceive.

“Stop kidding me! It's not funny.”
(colloquial, participle, present, reflexive, transitive, usually)To dupe or deceive.

“You're kidding yourself if you think you can be a rockstar.”
(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.”
(colloquial, intransitive, participle, present, usually)To joke.

“You must be kidding!”
“I'm only kidding!”
“No kidding!”
“"Blind!" exclaimed the old fellow, sitting up in startled wonderment. "You mean it, sir? You walk all right and you look at me as if you saw me. You're kidding surely."”
(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."”

name

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

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

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…

See full etymology

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.