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American Dictionary of the English Language

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Aid


AID, verb transitive [Latin adjuto.

To help; to assist; to support, either by furnishing strength or means to effect a purpose, or to prevent or remove evil.

AID, noun

1. Help; succor; support; assistance.

2. The person who aids or yields support; a helper; an auxiliary; also the thing that aids or yields succor.

3. In English law, a subsidy or tax granted by parliament, and making a part of the king's revenue.

In France, aids are equivalent to customs, or duties on imports and exports.

4. In England, a tax paid by a tenant to his lord; originally a mere gift, which afterwards became a right demandable by the lord. the aids of this king were chiefly three.

1. To ransom the lord when a prisoner.

2. To make the lord's eldest son a knight.

3. To marry the lord's eldest daughter.

5. An aiddecamp, so called by abbreviation.

6. To pray in aid in law, is to call in a person interested in a title, to assist in defending it. Thus a tenant for life may pray in the aid of him in remainder or reversion; that is, he may pray or petition that he may be joined in the suit to aid or help maintain the title. This act or petition is called aid-prayer.

Court of aids, in France, is a court which has cognizance of causes respecting duties or customs.