# aid and abet
## English
### Etymology

* 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

* (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA: /ˌeɪd‿n̩ əˈbɛt/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɛt

### Verb

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)
* (transitive)
** 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.
** To assist someone in (an illegal act) as an accessory or accomplice.
*** 1881, Frederick Douglass, “Escape from Slavery”, in Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, […], Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., →OCLC, part II, page 196:Murder itself was not more sternly and certainly punished in the State of Maryland, than that of aiding and abetting the escape of a slave.
* (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 […]

#### Derived terms

* aider and abettor

#### Translations
### Further reading

* aiding and abetting on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
* aid and comfort on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
* “to aid and abet, phrase” under “aid, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2022.
* “aiding and abetting, idiom”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.