aids
noun
Form of aid , plural of aid.
Simple meaning
An infectious disease, caused by HIV, that causes the gradual degeneration of the body's immune system.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
aydzIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈeɪdz
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
pathology
An infectious disease, caused by HIV, that causes the gradual degeneration of the body's immune system.
Alternative letter-case form of AIDS ("acquired immune deficiency syndrome").
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (pathology) An infectious disease, caused by HIV, that causes the gradual degeneration of the body's immune system.
Used this way, aids is a specialist word with a faintly unfavourable edge. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Science
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.