What’s the difference between “aid” and “aide”? “Aid” can be used as a noun or a verb and means “assistance” or “to assist.” In comparison, “aide” is only ever used as a noun and refers to someone who is an assistant.
As a noun, “aid” refers to help or assistance, often of a financial nature. Examples of “aid” as a noun include the following:
As a verb, “aid” means to provide assistance. Examples of “aid” as a verb include the following:
“Aide” with an e is only ever used as a noun. An “aide” is someone who assists or helps someone else. When someone is called an “aide,” it usually means he or she is assisting a superior, and the noun is most often used to describe assistants in medical, military, or political positions.
Sample uses of “aide” include the following:
English stole “aide,” along with many other words, from the French. “Aide” was shortened from the French aide-de-camp, a military term that means “camp assistant.” The use of aide-de-camp goes back to the seventeenth century, and the word never fully escaped its military origins.
“Aid” also comes to English from the French, specifically from the Old French aidier, meaning “to help or assist.” Aidier, in turn, has its origins in the Latin verb adiuvare, which also means “to help or assist.”
It’s often easy to differentiate two similar words by their pronunciation, but not so with “aid” and “aide.” The two words are homophones, meaning they sound the same when spoken even though they’re spelled differently and have different meanings. The phonetic pronunciation for both “aide” and “aid” is /ād/.
Most people are familiar enough with “aid,” so it’s generally only “aide” that causes difficulty. You can remember its definition as an assistant because “aide” has an e in it, as does helper.
In summary, “aide” is only ever used as a noun and denotes someone who is an assistant or helper—usually an important one: “The CEO’s aide was accustomed to his boss’s outbursts.”
“Aid,” however, can be used as a noun or verb. As a verb, it means to assist or help: “I aided my sick father up the stairs.” As a noun, “aid” means assistance or help: “The charity provides aid to the victims of the famine.”
Check out our explanation of principle vs. principal.
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