bid

Less common meanings

7. 7
   verbarchaictransitive

   To invite or summon someone.

   In his cloak of words strode the ringmaster, / Bid me join the parade

   1970, King Crimson, “Cirkus (including "Entry of the Chameleons")”

   She was bidden to the wedding.

   Similarsummon, invite, call

   Note

   Summoning is the commanding verb turned courteous, and it keeps the longer participle bidden: she was bidden to the wedding. Shakespeare's Shylock uses the shorter form instead, "I am bid forth to supper… I am not bid for love," so both participles have literary standing. King Crimson's 1970 lyric, a request to be summoned into a procession, shows the word still at home in deliberately elevated song.

8. 8
   card gameverbtransitive or intransitive

   In a card game, to announce the number of tricks or points one aims to win before play begins.

   In bridge, players bid in turn to describe their hands.

   He bid four hearts and went on to make the contract.

   Similarcall

   Oppositepass

   Note

   Card players use the word for the declaration that sets up a hand before any card is played. A bid that becomes the contract sets the target the player or partnership must then go on to make.

9. 9
   prison termnounslangcountable

   A term of imprisonment; a prison sentence.

   He caught a two-year bid for the robbery.

   Friends wrote to him throughout his long bid.

   UsageUsually do a bid or catch a bid, as in a five-year bid; in formal writing say sentence.

   Similarbit

   Note

   Prison slang for a stretch of time inside, and it pairs naturally with do: in Psych (2007) a character boasts that he "did an eight-hour bid," a joke because the term is absurdly short. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • The quoted Psych dialogue dates to 2007. en.wiktionary.org
   • A character in Psych says he "did an eight-hour bid." en.wiktionary.org
10. 10
    frisbee divenouncountable

    In ultimate frisbee, an attempt (often unsuccessful) to catch or intercept a thrown disc.

    He laid out in a full-extension bid, but the disc hit the grass first.

    Her late bid on the disc in the end zone came up just short.

    Note

    In this sport the noun praises effort. "Nice bid!" goes to a player who stretched for a pass, whether or not the disc was caught or blocked. Elsewhere an attempt that fails is simply a miss. Here the word honors the commitment of the full-extension reach, which is why it is so often heard after the disc has slipped away.

11. 11
    verbobsolete

    To proclaim or recite a prayer; to pray.

    All night she spent in bidding of her bedes, / And all the day in doing good and godly deedes.

    1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene

    Note

    A prayer word that has gone out of use: a bede was a prayer, and to bid one's bedes was to say them. Spenser's The Faerie Queene of 1590 shows the phrase at home: "All night she spent in bidding of her bedes." Outside conscious imitation of older English, few readers will hear praying in it, so they are likely to take it as commanding or offering instead. Source

    Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

    • A bede was a prayer. en.wiktionary.org
    • To bid one's bedes meant to say one's prayers. gutenberg.org
    • Edmund Spenser wrote The Faerie Queene, first published in 1590 (Books I–III). themorgan.org
    • The quoted line appears in The Faerie Queene, Book I, Canto X, stanza 3, as narration. gutenberg.org
12. 12
    verb

    In trucking, to regularly drive a particular assigned route.
13. 13
    noun

    In trucking, the fixed route a driver regularly runs starting from their home base.