Other forms: bids, bidding
A bid is an offer of a price at a sale. Make a bid, the winning bid, a bid of ninety.
At auction the winner is the one who valued it most, which sounds obvious and means they may have overpaid — the winner's curse is the name for that. A takeover bid is an offer for a company. As a verb, bid also means to command, which is the older sense. Note bidding.
1nounbidAn offer of a price at a sale.
“At the auction, someone made a bid of five hundred pounds for the old clock.”
2verbcommandTo command or invite.
“Do as I bid you, and nobody will get hurt.”
bid is an offer, or a command.
Old English biddan means to ask, and was conflated with beodan, to command. Both senses survive in the modern verb.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʷʰedʰ-
Proto-Germanic
*bidjaną — to ask
Proto-West Germanic
*biddjan
Middle English
bidden
English, today
bid
Built from
From Middle English bidden, from Old English - biddan (“to ask, demand”), from Proto-West Germanic biddjan, from Proto-Germanic bidjaną (“to ask”), from Proto-Indo-European gʷʰedʰ-. Conflated with Old English - bēodan (“to offer, announce”) (see Etymology 2 below). Compare West Frisian bidde, Low German bidden, Dutch bidden ("to pray"), German bitten, Danish bede, Norwegian Bokmål be.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA