kind
adjective · noun
Simple meaning
Being friendly, generous, and caring about other people's feelings
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kyndIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkaɪnd
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.
adjective
Having a benevolent, courteous, friendly, generous, gentle, liberal, sympathetic, or warm-hearted nature or disposition, marked by consideration for – and service to – others.
Gentle; tractable; easily governed.
Affectionate.
Favorable.
Mild, gentle, forgiving
noun
A type, race or category; a group of entities that have common characteristics such that they may be grouped together.
Goods or services used as payment, as e.g. in barter.
A makeshift or otherwise atypical specimen.
Equivalent means used as response to an action.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Having a benevolent, courteous, friendly, generous, gentle, liberal, sympathetic, or warm-hearted nature or disposition, marked by consideration for – and service to – others.
Used this way, kind is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly warm, approving pull. It carries warmth, so it reads as personal rather than detached.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Slightly formal
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Generous and giving
- Usage feel
- Warm and expressive
Nearby words
- kindhearted , rarer, so it draws attention
- forgiving , a specialist term, precise but narrower
- openhearted , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Similar Words, What’s the Difference?
Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.
Kind and warmly courteous.
Having a disposition to do good.
Kind; gentle; mild.
Of or relating to the sympathetic nervous system.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The quality of being warmhearted and considerate and humane and sympathetic.
In a kind manner or out of kindness.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
To some (great or small) extent.
Sympathy arising from a kind heart.
Be willing or inclined to accept.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
adjective
Sense: having a benevolent or courteous or friendly or generous
Antonyms
Sense: having a benevolent or courteous or friendly or generous
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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.