/ kɪd; NAmE / noun , verb , adjective
■ noun
1.
[ C ] ( informal ) a child or young person :
A bunch of kids were hanging around outside.
a kid of 15
She's a bright kid.
How are the kids (= your children) ?
Do you have any kids?
HELP NOTE : Kid is much more common than child in informal and spoken NAmE .
2.
[ C ] a young goat
3.
[ U ] soft leather made from the skin of a young goat
•
IDIOMS
- handle / treat, etc. sb with kid gloves
- kids' stuff
—more at new
■ verb ( -dd- ) ( informal )
1.
(usually used in the progressive tenses) to tell sb sth that is not true, especially as a joke
SYN joke :
[ v ]
I thought he was kidding when he said he was going out with a rock star.
I didn't mean it. I was only kidding .
[ vn ]
I'm not kidding you. It does work.
2.
kid sb / yourself to allow sb/yourself to believe sth that is not true
SYN deceive :
[ vn ]
They're kidding themselves if they think its going to be easy.
[ vn ( that )]
I tried to kid myself (that) everything was normal.
•
IDIOMS
- no kidding
- you're kidding | you must be kidding
•
PHRASAL VERBS
- kid around
■ adjective
kid sister / brother ( informal , especially NAmE ) a person's younger sister / brother
••
WORD ORIGIN
noun Middle English (in sense 3): from Old Norse kith , of Germanic origin; related to German Kitze .
verb early 19th cent.: perhaps from kid (noun), expressing the notion “make a child or goat of”.