Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A young goat.
  • noun One of the young of certain similar animals.
  • noun The flesh of a young goat.
  • noun Leather made from the skin of a young goat; kidskin.
  • noun An article made from this leather.
  • noun A child.
  • noun A young person.
  • noun Slang Pal. Used as a term of familiar address, especially for a young person.
  • adjective Made of the skin or with the meat of a young goat.
  • adjective Informal Younger than oneself.
  • intransitive verb To mock playfully; tease.
  • intransitive verb To deceive in fun; fool.
  • intransitive verb To deceive (oneself), especially by allowing one's desires to cloud one's judgment.
  • intransitive verb To engage in teasing or good-humored fooling.
  • intransitive verb To bear young. Used of a goat or similar animal.
  • idiom (no kidding) Used to express surprise or disbelief.
  • idiom (no kidding) Used to express scornful acknowledgment of the obvious.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • A Middle English preterit of kithe.
  • noun A fagot or bundle, as of heath or furze.
  • noun A bundle of sticks or brush planted on a beach to stop shingle or gather sand, to act as a groin.
  • noun A bundle of sticks or twigs strapped in front of the legs to help a rider to keep his seat on a bucking horse.
  • noun A hoax: humbug.
  • To bind up, as a fagot.
  • To bring forth (young): said especially of a goat.
  • noun A young goat.
  • noun The flesh of a young goat.
  • noun Leather made from the skin of a kid, used in making shoes and gloves. Much of the leather so used and sold as “kid” is made from other skins.
  • noun The roe deer in its first year.
  • noun A child, especially a male child.
  • noun plural Gloves made of kid or of the leather so called. See def. 3.
  • Made of kid or of the leather so called.
  • See I., 3.
  • noun A small tub; nautical, a small tub or vessel in which sailors receive their food.
  • noun A box or wooden pen built on the deck of a fishing-vessel to receive fish as they are caught.
  • noun plural In astronomy, a pair of small stars in the constellation Auriga, represented as kids held in the hand of the charioteer.
  • To hoax; humbug; deceive.
  • Known; well-known; famous; renowned: formerly, in poetry, a general term of commendation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To bring forth a young goat.
  • noun (Zoöl.) A young goat.
  • noun Slang A young child or infant; hence, a simple person, easily imposed on.
  • noun A kind of leather made of the skin of the young goat, or of the skin of rats, etc.
  • noun Colloq. & Low Gloves made of kid.
  • noun A small wooden mess tub; -- a name given by sailors to one in which they receive their food.
  • noun Cant Among pugilists, thieves, gunfighters, etc., a youthful expert; -- chiefly used attributively.
  • transitive verb Slang See kiddy, v. t.
  • noun Prov. Eng. A fagot; a bundle of heath and furze.
  • past participle obsolete of kythe.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English kide, from Old Norse kidh.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English kide, from Old Norse kið ("young goat"), compare Swedish, Danish kid, from Proto-Germanic *kiðjom, compare German Kitz, Kitze and Albanian keð,kec ("a kid").

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Examples

Comments

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  • The NY Times crossword of 1-3-10 listed kid as the answer to the clue "a little butter". I am trying to figure out the connection. Is it a small goat will produce just a little butter? Seems weak to me.

    January 25, 2010

  • Hmm... how about the verb "to butt"? Goats butt, so I guess you could call a goat a "butter", which would make a kid a "little butter".

    January 25, 2010

  • Sounds as if you're "butting heads" with the NY Times. (Does that help?)

    Edit: pterodactyl beat me by 7 seconds. It really gets my goat when I forget to see whether someone else has already commented.

    January 25, 2010

  • Can't stand pat with that one.

    January 25, 2010