English

Verb

hide ‎(third-person singular simple present hides, present participle hiding, simple past hid, past participle hidden or (archaic) hid)

1. (transitive) To put (something) in a place where it will be harder to discover or out of sight.
   • 1856, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part III Chapter XI, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling

     The blind man, whom he had not been able to cure with the pomade, had gone back to the hill of Bois-Guillaume, where he told the travellers of the vain attempt of the druggist, to such an extent, that Homais when he went to town hid himself behind the curtains of the "Hirondelle" to avoid meeting him.

   • 2013 July 19, Timothy Garton Ash, “Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 18:

     Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail, a new great game is under way across the globe. Some call it geoeconomics, but it's geopolitics too. The current power play consists of an extraordinary range of countries simultaneously sitting down to negotiate big free trade and investment agreements.

   He hides his magazines under the bed.‎

   The politicians were accused of keeping information hidden from the public.‎

2. (intransitive) To put oneself in a place where one will be harder to find or out of sight.
   • 2013 May-June, William E. Conner, “An Acoustic Arms Race”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 206-7:

     Nonetheless, some insect prey take advantage of clutter by hiding in it. Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close (less than half a meter) above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them.

Synonyms

• (transitive): conceal, hide away, secrete
• (intransitive): go undercover, hide away, hide oneself, hide out, lie low

Antonyms

• (transitive): disclose, expose, reveal, show, uncover
• (intransitive): reveal oneself, show oneself

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Old English hȳd, from Proto-Germanic *hūdiz (compare West Frisian hûd, Dutch huid, German Haut), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)keu-t- 'skin, hide' (compare Welsh cwd ‎(“scrotum”), Latin cutis ‎(“skin”), Lithuanian kutys ‎(“purse, money-belt”), Ancient Greek κύτος ‎(kútos, “hollow vessel”), σκῦτος ‎(skûtos, “cover, hide”)), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)keu-, 'to cover'. More at sky.

Noun

hide ‎(plural hides)

1. (countable) The skin of an animal.
2. (obsolete or derogatory) The human skin.
   • Shakespeare

     O tiger's heart, wrapped in a woman's hide!

3. (uncountable, informal, usually US) One's own life or personal safety, especially when in peril.
   • 1957, Ayn Rand, Francisco d'Anconia's speech in Atlas Shrugged:

     The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of money and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide—as I think he will.

4. (countable) (mainly British) A covered structure from which hunters, birdwatchers, etc can observe animals without scaring them.

Synonyms

• (animal skin): pelt, skin
• (land measure): carucate

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

hide ‎(third-person singular simple present hides, present participle hiding, simple past and past participle hided)

1. To beat with a whip made from hide.
   • 1891, Robert Weir, J. Moray Brown, Riding

     He ran last week, and he was hided, and he was out on the day before yesterday, and here he is once more, and he knows he's got to run and to be hided again.

Etymology 3

From Middle English hide, from Old English hīd, hȳd, hīġed, hīġid ‎(“a measure of land”), for earlier *hīwid ‎(“the amount of land needed to support one family”), a derivative of Proto-Germanic *hīwaz, *hīwō ‎(“relative, fellow-lodger, family”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱei- ‎(“to lie with, store, be familiar”). Related to Old English hīwisc ‎(“hide of land, household”), Old English hīwan ‎(“members of a family, household”). More at hewe, hind.

Noun

hide ‎(plural hides)

1. (historical) An English unit of land and tax assessment intended to support one household and notionally equal to 120 acres.

Usage notes

The hide was originally intended to represent the amount of land farmed by a single household but was primarily connected to obligations owed to the Saxon and Norman kings and thus varied greatly from place to place. Around the time of the Domesday Book under the Normans, the hide was usually but not always the land expected to produce £1 (1 Tower pound of sterling silver) in income over the year.

Hypernyms

• (100 hides) barony

Synonyms

• See carucate

Hyponyms

• (¼ hide) See virgate
• (⅛ hide) See oxgang
• (¹/₁₆ hide) nook
• farundel

Anagrams

• hied