Skip to main content
PlainSpell

kid

/ˈkɪd/noun, verb

kid is spelled K-I-D: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 98 times per million words in written English, the 1,112th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, kid means “A child, adolescent, or (loosely) a young adult” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of kid is kids.

How many letters and syllables are in kid?

Letters3: K-I-D
Syllables1
In writing98 times per million words; the 1,112th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is kid?

Kid appears 98 times per million words in written English, the 1,112th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce kid?

  • /ˈkɪd/
  • [ˈkʰɪd]

Kid has one syllable.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-kid.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with kid?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as kid.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: idk.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of kid

  • kids plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • kidding participle, present
  • kidded participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does kid mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    informalA child, adolescent, or (loosely) a young adult.

    She's a kid. It's normal for her to have imaginary friends.

  2. 2

    informalA person whose childhood took place in a particular time period or area.

    Only '90s kids will remember this toy.

  3. 3

    informalOne's son or daughter, regardless of age.

    This is Bobby, he is our youngest kid.

  4. 4

    informalUsed as a form of address for a child, teenager or young adult.

  5. 5

    colloquialinformalAn inexperienced person or one in a junior position.

  6. 6

    A young goat.

    He treated the oxen like they didn't exist, but he treated the goat kid like a puppy.

  7. 7

    Kidskin.

  8. 8

    The meat of a young goat.

  9. 9

    UKA seed pod, usually of a leguminous plant.

  10. 10

    datedSynonym of faggot (“bundle of heath and furze”).

verb

  1. 1

    colloquialTo dupe or deceive.

    Are you kidding me?

  2. 2

    colloquialTo deceive or dupe as a joke.

    Stop kidding me! It's not funny.

  3. 3

    colloquialTo deceive oneself by having unrealistic expectations.

    You're kidding yourself if you think you can be a rockstar.

  4. 4

    colloquialTo mock or make a fool of (someone) in a playful way.

    They were always kidding her for her stutter.

  5. 5

    colloquialTo joke.

    You must be kidding!

  6. 6

    Of a goat: to give birth.

    That nanny over there with the white tail has kidded every year for the last five years.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Kid in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchgamin, gosse, bambin, môme (child (colloq.)), se moquer, niaiser (mock playfully)
GermanKind (child (colloq.)), Bursche, Bube, Halbstarker (young person (colloq.)), Kitz, Zicklein (young goat)
Portuguesecriança, miúdo, piá, guri (child (colloq.)), jovem, moleque (young person (colloq.))
Spanishniño, buqui, chamaco, chamo, chango, chino (child (colloq.))

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does kid come from?

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.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after kid