kids

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of kid.

   Both kids grew up on a farm surrounded by animals.

   The neighborhood kids built a fort out of cardboard boxes.

   Note

   One spelling covers both a farm and a classroom here, since kids can be young goats or children. Only the human meanings carry an informal label. In careful writing, children is the safer plural, while for a goat breeder kids is simply the ordinary word. The same letters also spell the verb for teasing, but a determiner or number before the word (two kids, the kids) marks it as the noun.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of kid.

   My uncle kids everyone at family dinners until they start laughing.

   She kids about her own mistakes to put nervous coworkers at ease.

   Note

   The -s form carries the whole range of the verb's constructions. With an object it teases or fools someone (he kids his sister). Used alone it means jokes, often followed by about. With a reflexive it means self-deception (she kids herself that the deadline will slip). One use stays off the playground: when the doe kids, she gives birth, and that sense carries no colloquial label at all.

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