Abet

//əˈbɛt// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Fraud or cunning. obsolete
  2. 2
    An act of abetting; of helping; of giving aid. obsolete
Verb
  1. 1
    To incite; to assist or encourage by aid or countenance in crime. transitive

    "aid and abet"

  2. 2
    assist or encourage, usually in some wrongdoing wordnet
  3. 3
    To support, countenance, maintain, uphold, or aid (any good cause, opinion, or action). transitive

    "Our duty is urged, and our confidence abetted."

  4. 4
    To urge on, stimulate (a person to do) something desirable. obsolete, transitive
  5. 5
    To back up one's forecast of a doubtful issue, by staking money, etc., to bet. obsolete

Synonyms

All synonyms
incitesupportaberrationactuateadvanceadvocate

Example

More examples

"It's illegal to aid and abet another person in committing a felony."

Etymology

From Middle English abetten, abette, from Old French abeter (“to entice”), from a- (“to”) + beter (“hound on, urge, to bait”), either from Middle Dutch bētan (“incite”) or from Old Norse beita (“to cause to bite, bait, incite”), from Proto-Germanic *baitijaną (“to cause to bite”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyd- (“to split”). Cognate with Icelandic beita (“to set dogs on; to feed”). Alternate etymology traces the Middle English and Old French words through Old English *ābǣtan (“to hound on”), from ā- + bǣtan (“to bait”), from the same source (Proto-Germanic *baitijaną). See also bait, bet.

Related phrases

aid and abet

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.