Search

[kid] /kɪd/ Informal.

verb (used with object), kidded, kidding.
1.
to talk or deal jokingly with; banter; jest with:
She is always kidded about her accent.
2.
to humbug or fool.
verb (used without object), kidded, kidding.
3.
to speak or act deceptively in jest; jest.
/ˈkɪdə/
noun
1.
a person who kids
2.
(Northern English, dialect) a brother or friend
/kɪd/
noun
1.
the young of a goat or of a related animal, such as an antelope
2.
soft smooth leather made from the hide of a kid
3.
(informal)

4.
(Liverpool, dialect) our kid, my younger brother or sister
verb kids, kidding, kidded
5.
(of a goat) to give birth to (young)
/kɪd/
verb (informal) kids, kidding, kidded sometimes foll by on or along
1.
(transitive) to tease or deceive for fun
2.
(intransitive) to behave or speak deceptively for fun
3.
(transitive) to delude or fool (oneself) into believing (something): don’t kid yourself that no-one else knows
/kɪd/
noun
1.
a small wooden tub
/kɪd/
noun
1.
a variant spelling of (Thomas) Kyd
n.

c.1200, “the young of a goat,” from a Scandinavian source (cf. Old Norse kið “young goat”), from Proto-Germanic *kiðjom (cf. Old High German kizzi, German kitze, Danish and Swedish kid). Extended meaning of “child” first recorded as slang 1590s, established in informal usage by 1840s. Applied to skillful young thieves and pugilists since at least 1812. Kid stuff “something easy” is from 1913 (The phrase was in use about that time in reference to vaudeville acts or advertisements featuring children, and to children-oriented features in newspapers). Kid glove “a glove made of kidskin leather” is from 1680s; sense of “characterized by wearing kid gloves,” therefore “dainty, delicate” is from 1856.
v.

“tease playfully,” 1839, earlier, in thieves’ cant, “to coax, wheedle, hoax” (1811), probably from kid (n.), via notion of “treat as a child, make a kid of.” Related: Kidded; kidding.

modifier

: his kid sister/ my kid cousin

noun

verb

Related Terms

i kid you not, new kid on the block, whiz kid

[fr kid, ”an infant goat”; bantering and fooling senses perhaps fr an alteration of dialect cod, ”hoax, fool”]

the young of the goat. It was much used for food (Gen. 27:9; 38:17; Judg. 6:19; 14:6). The Mosaic law forbade to dress a kid in the milk of its dam, a law which is thrice repeated (Ex. 23:19; 34:26; Deut. 14:21). Among the various reasons assigned for this law, that appears to be the most satisfactory which regards it as “a protest against cruelty and outraging the order of nature.” A kid cooked in its mother’s milk is “a gross, unwholesome dish, and calculated to kindle animal and ferocious passions, and on this account Moses may have forbidden it. Besides, it is even yet associated with immoderate feasting; and originally, I suspect,” says Dr. Thomson (Land and the Book), “was connected with idolatrous sacrifices.”