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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

lid.

The top or cover of a container.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/lɪd//lɛd/dialectal, obsolete

  1. The top or cover of a container.

  2. A cap or hat.

    slang

  3. One ounce of cannabis.

    slang

  4. A bodyboard or bodyboarder.

    Australia · slang

  5. An operculum or other lid-like cover.

  6. A motorcyclist's crash helmet.

    slang

  7. In amateur radio, an incompetent operator.

    slang

  8. Clipping of eyelid.

    abbreviation · alt-of · clipping

  9. A hermetically sealed top piece on a microchip such as the integrated heat spreader on a CPU.

  10. A restraint or control, as when "putting a lid" on something.

    figuratively

  11. A kid (from the rhyming slang bin lid).

    slang

  12. The sky.

  13. One's mind.

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- Proto-Indo-European *-éyti Proto-Indo-European *ḱléyti Proto-Indo-European *ḱley- Proto-Indo-European *-tós Proto-Indo-European *ḱlitós Proto-Indo-European *-om Proto-Indo-European *ḱlitóm Proto-Germanic *hlidą Proto-West Germanic *hlid Old English hlid Middle English lid English lid Inherited from Middle English lid, lyd, from Old English hlid, from Proto-West Germanic *hlid, from Proto-Germanic *hlidą (compare Dutch lid, German Lid (“eyelid”), Swedish lid (“gate”)), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱlitós (“covered”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱley- (“to cover”).

verb/lɪd//lɛd/dialectal, obsolete

  1. To put a lid on (something).

    transitive
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- Proto-Indo-European *-éyti Proto-Indo-European *ḱléyti Proto-Indo-European *ḱley- Proto-Indo-European *-tós Proto-Indo-European *ḱlitós Proto-Indo-European *-om Proto-Indo-European *ḱlitóm Proto-Germanic *hlidą Proto-West Germanic *hlid Old English hlid Middle English lid English lid Inherited from Middle English lid, lyd, from Old English hlid, from Proto-West Germanic *hlid, from Proto-Germanic *hlidą (compare Dutch lid, German Lid (“eyelid”), Swedish lid (“gate”)), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱlitós (“covered”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱley- (“to cover”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.