kid [ME] Kid probably comes from Old Norse kith. Young goats are traditionally a source of soft pliable leather for fine gloves. In the 19th century this gave us the expression handle with kid gloves to mean ‘to deal very tactfully and gently with’. Our familiar use of kid for a young person developed in the 19th century, but probably looks back to late 17th-century slang use to mean a baby or young child. The verb kidnap—its second syllable is a slang word, nap, meaning ‘to take or seize’—originally referred to the 17th-century practice of stealing children to provide servants or labourers for the new American plantations. Nap survives in the colloquial nab [L17th] for ‘to arrest, steal’.