Definitions

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

  • intransitive verb To provide assistance, support, or relief to.
  • intransitive verb To provide assistance, support, or relief.
  • noun The act or result of helping; assistance.
  • noun Something that provides help, support, or relief, such as money or supplies.
  • noun Something, such as a device, that provides improvement.
  • noun An assistant or helper.
  • noun An aide or aide-de-camp.
  • noun A monetary payment to a feudal lord by a vassal in medieval England.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In the navy, an officer on the staff of an admiral whose duties are similar to those of an aide-de-camp to a general.
  • To help; assist; afford support or relief; promote the desire, purpose, or action of: as, to aid a person in his business, or an animal in its efforts; to aid a medicine in its operation.
  • To promote the course or accomplishment of; help in advancing or bringing about; forward; facilitate: as, to aid the recovery of a patient, or the operation of a machine; to aid one's designs.
  • noun Help; succor; support; assistance.
  • noun He who or that which aids or yields assistance; a helper; an auxiliary; an assistant: as, Coleridge's “Aids to Reflection.”
  • noun In feudal law, a customary payment made by a tenant or vassal to his lord, originally a voluntary gift; hence, in English history, applied to the forms of taxation employed by the crown between the Norman conquest and the fourteenth century.
  • noun An aide-de-camp: so called by abbreviation.
  • noun plural In the manège, the helps by which a horseman contributes toward the motion or action required of a horse, as by a judicious use of the heel, leg, rein, or spur.
  • noun A deep gutter cut across plowed land.
  • noun A reach in a river.

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

  • transitive verb To support, either by furnishing strength or means in coöperation to effect a purpose, or to prevent or to remove evil; to help; to assist.
  • noun Help; succor; assistance; relief.
  • noun The person or thing that promotes or helps in something done; a helper; an assistant.
  • noun (Eng. Hist.) A subsidy granted to the king by Parliament; also, an exchequer loan.
  • noun (Feudal Law) A pecuniary tribute paid by a vassal to his lord on special occasions.
  • noun An aid-de-camp, so called by abbreviation.
  • noun (Law) a proceeding by which a defendant beseeches and claims assistance from some one who has a further or more permanent interest in the matter in suit.
  • noun to beseech and claim such assistance.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To (give) support (to); to further the progress of; to help; to assist.
  • noun Help; assistance; succor, relief.
  • noun The person who promotes or helps in something being done; a helper; an assistant.
  • noun Something which helps; a material source of help.
  • noun UK A historical subsidy granted to the crown by Parliament for an extraordinary purpose, such as a war effort
  • noun UK An exchequer loan.
  • noun law A pecuniary tribute paid by a vassal to his feudal lord on special occasions.
  • noun An aide-de-camp, so called by abbreviation

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun money to support a worthy person or cause
  • verb give help or assistance; be of service
  • noun the work of providing treatment for or attending to someone or something
  • noun the activity of contributing to the fulfillment of a need or furtherance of an effort or purpose
  • verb improve the condition of
  • noun a resource

Etymologies

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

[Middle English aiden, from Old French aider, from Latin adiūtāre, frequentative of adiuvāre, to help : ad-, to; see ad- in Indo-European roots + iuvāre, to help.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French aidier (modern aider), from Latin adiuto, frequentative of adiuvo "to assist".

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French aide, from Latin adiuvō ("to assist, help"). Cognate include Spanish ayuda, Portuguese ajuda and Italian aiuto

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