aid and abet

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English[edit]

WOTD – 3 November 2023

Etymology[edit]

PIE word
*h₂éd

From aid (“to provide support to, assist, help”) + and + abet (“to assist or encourage by aid or countenance in crime, incite”).

Pronunciation[edit]

Verb[edit]

aid and abet (third-person singular simple present aids and abets, present participle aiding and abetting, simple past and past participle aided and abetted) (criminal law, also by extension in other contexts)

  1. (transitive)
    1. To assist (someone) in an illegal act as an accessory or accomplice.
      A bank employee was accused of aiding and abetting the gang of robbers.
      • [1892], [Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de] Montesquieu, “Letter CXVI: Usbek to the Same [Rhedi]”, in John Davidson, transl., Persian Letters, London: George Routledge & Sons; New York, N.Y.: E[dward] P[ayson] Dutton & Co., →OCLC, page 259:
        In my future letters I shall perhaps take the opportunity to prove to you that the more men there are in a state, the more prosperous its commerce; I shall prove as easily, that as commerce flourishes, men increase; these two things necessarily aid and abet each other.
      • 1894 December – 1895 November, Thomas Hardy, chapter VII, in Jude the Obscure, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], published 1896, →OCLC, part III (At Melchester), page 202:
        What oppressed Jude was the thought that, having done a wrong thing of this sort himself, he was aiding and abetting the woman he loved in doing a like wrong thing, instead of imploring and warning her against it.
      • 1905 January 12, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “On the Track”, in The Scarlet Pimpernel, popular edition, London: Greening & Co., published 20 March 1912, →OCLC, page 261:
        Caught, red-handed, on the spot, in the very act of aiding and abetting the traitors against the Republic of France, the Englishman could claim no protection from his own country.
      • 2009, David Salter, “Shakespeare and Catholicism: The Franciscan Connection”, in William Shakespeare, edited by Harold Bloom, William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations), new edition, New York, N.Y.: Bloom’s Literary Criticism, Infobase Publishing, →ISBN, page 66:
        Moreover, "the superstitious" Fryer Lawrence—a figure of no higher moral standing than a "dronken gossyppe"—wilfully aids and abets the lovers [Romeo and Juliet] in their perfidious course of action, using the secret, even occultist, rituals of the Catholic Church to achieve his perverse ends.
    2. To assist someone in (an illegal act) as an accessory or accomplice.
  2. (intransitive) To be an accessory or accomplice to someone in an illegal act.
    • 1964 May 11, In the Matter of SMYTHE, BOWERS, HILLIARD & CO., INC. […] File No. 8-8735: Findings and Opinion of the Commission (Securities Exchange Act Release; no. 7312), Washington, D.C.: Securities and Exchange Commission, page 1:
      From about April 13 to about May 17, 1962, registrant, during a time when it was undergoing a change in ownership and management, together with or aided and abetted by Smythe, willfully violated Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 […]

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