What does bid mean?
To bid is to put forward a price or a proposal in competition with others. Most familiarly, it describes offering money for an item at auction, where buyers raise their bids until the highest one wins; by extension it covers formally offering to carry out work or supply goods for a stated fee, as when firms bid on contracts. In card games such as bridge, players bid by declaring how many tricks they expect to take. The noun refers to any such offer — an opening bid, the highest bid, a sealed bid. An older, largely literary sense means to command or instruct ("she bade him sit") and survives chiefly in set phrases like bidding someone farewell. Derived forms include bidder, bidding, and compounds like outbid and underbid, which extend the competitive idea into everyday business language. The word carries connotations of rivalry, negotiation, and formal exchange.
To offer a particular amount of money for something, especially at an auction; to make a formal offer to do work or provide services for a stated price.
"Several firms bid for the contract to renovate the bridge."
In this sense the verb is regular: bid, bid, bid.
To command or instruct someone to do something; to utter a greeting or farewell (as in "bid someone goodnight").
"She bade the guests a fond farewell at the door."
This sense is now literary or archaic and uses the irregular past tense "bade."
An offer of a specific amount of money made in competition with other buyers, or a formal proposal to undertake work at a stated price.
"His opening bid was far below the painting's estimated value."
Standard plural used for multiple offers, as in auctions or contract tenders.
"The house attracted twelve bids within a week of listing."
When you place a bid, you're using a word over a thousand years old — the same ancient root gave us "forbid" and even the eerie old phrase "an ill omen bodes."
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of bid
"Bid" descends from Old English "bēodan," meaning to offer or proclaim, and belongs to a family of Germanic verbs that also produced the related verb "bode" (as in "it bodes ill") and words built on the same root such as "forbid." Its core senses of offering and commanding have remained remarkably stable across more than a millennium of English, with the commercial auction sense becoming dominant in modern usage.
Related word forms
How bid is actually used
"Bid" is standard register across contexts, though its command sense ("he bade them enter") now sounds literary or archaic and takes the irregular past tense "bade"; the auction and contracting senses take regular forms (bid / bid / bid).
Easily confused with bid
"Bade" is simply the past tense of the older sense of "bid" (to order or say goodbye), whereas "bid" is the present-tense verb or the noun for an offer.