Other forms: abetting, abetted, abets
To abet is to help somebody do something wrong. Aid and abet, abet a crime, abetting the offence.
It appears almost only in the legal pair aid and abet, which makes a helper as guilty as the person who acted. The Old French behind it meant to bait or urge a dog on.
1verbabetTo help somebody do something wrong.
“His brother abetted the robbery by waiting outside in the getaway car.”
abet is a helping.
Old French abeter means to entice or urge on, from a word for baiting a dog.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰeyd- — to split
Proto-Germanic
*baitijaną — to cause to bite
Old Norse
beita — to cause to bite, bait, incite
Middle Dutch
bētan — incite
Old French
abeter — to entice
Middle English
abetten
English, today
abet
Built from
From Middle English abetten, abette, from Old French abeter (“to entice”), from a- (“to”) + beter (“hound on, urge, to bait”), either from Middle Dutch bētan (“incite”) or from Old Norse beita (“to cause to bite, bait, incite”), from Proto-Germanic baitijaną (“to cause to bite”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰeyd- (“to split”). Cognate with Icelandic beita (“to set dogs on; to feed”). Alternate etymology traces the Middle English and Old French words through Old English ābǣtan (“to hound on”), from ā- + bǣtan (“to bait”), from the same source (Proto-Germanic baitijaną). See also bait, bet.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA