Other forms: aids
Aid is help given, especially money or supplies sent to people in need. Food, medicine, tents, and the lorries that carry them.
International aid, humanitarian aid and an aid agency are the standard phrases, and foreign aid is a permanent political argument. The word also means a device that helps, so a hearing aid and a visual aid both take it. As a verb it means to help, and legal English keeps aiding and abetting for helping somebody commit a crime. First aid is the immediate treatment given before professionals arrive.
1nounaidHelp, especially money or supplies given to those in need.
“Aid began arriving two days after the earthquake.”
2noundeviceA device that helps someone do something.
“He was fitted with a hearing aid.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Aid comes from Latin adiuvō, to assist, by way of adiuto, its frequentative form. The grammar makes it a verb for helping over and over rather than once.
Latin
adiuto — to assist, help
Old French
eide
Middle English
aide
English, today
aid
From Middle English aide, eide, ayde, from Old French eide, aide, from aidier, from Latin adiuto (“to assist, help”). Cognates include Spanish ayuda, Portuguese ajuda and Italian aiuto.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA