kind (adjective, noun) LISTEN
If someone is kind, it means that they are a good person who likes to do nice things for other people.
- My husband is a kind man.
A kind is a type of thing.
- My favorite kind of ice cream is chocolate.
We can use kind of to mean ‘a little.’ For example, if someone is kind of scared, it means that they are a little scared.
- I'm kind of nervous about the exam.
When we want to thank someone because they did something nice for us, we can say that it was kind of them to do it. For example, “It was very kind of you to stop and help me.”
In pop culture
The 1979 song “Cruel to be Kind” says that sometimes you have to be mean to be nice. (Cruel is the opposite of kind.) Can you think of a time when you had to be cruel to be kind?
There are other meanings of kind.