Meanings
- Synonym of i.e. or that is.
The air is robust, and the words, I am told, are very patriotic, id est self-glorificatory, but I do not care for them very much myself. One reason is that I am not a Dutchman, but the chief reason is that I do not understand them.
1876 November 2, special correspondent, “The North Sea Canal”, in The Standard, number 16,313, London, published 6 November 1876, →OCLC, page 5, column 73 more examples
De Paor’s Clontarf pumping station — an angular, clanking, copper-clad bunker at the end of Vernon Avenue — will be finished within three months. Id est, a gritty, bent-tube lamp standard he designed for Clontarf, has been licensed for production by the London manufacturer, Urbis.
2003 March 16, Shane O’Toole, “Architecture: Designer with a dream”, in The Times, London: News UK, →ISSN, →OCLCAttorneys for D'Souza sent a letter to Google asking whether the low search placement of America -- which happens to share the name of a popular soft-rock band, as well as two continents and a country -- was due to "human or automated error." Id est, was Google rigging the game against D'Souza?
2014 July 10, David Weigel, “Dinesh D’Souza, Effective Crybaby”, in Slate, New York, N.Y.: The Slate Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 10 Jul 2014“Speaking to a compatriot and friend on 19 October 2016, a Kremlin insider provided further details of reported clandestine meeting/s between Republican presidential candidate, Donald TRUMP’s lawyer Michael COHEN and Kremlin representatives,” it said. Id est, the famous Cohen-Prague collusion conference.
2019 December 13, Erik Wemple, “‘The story stands’: McClatchy won’t back off its Michael Cohen-Prague reporting”, in The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 13 Dec 2019Synonyms: i.e
Synonyms & antonyms
phraseSynonym of i.e. or that is.
More synonyms by meaning
adverba figure of speech used as a way to provide further information, or to be more specific or exact about something
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Latinid est
- Old Englishid est
- Middle Englishid est
- Englishid est
From Middle English id est, from Old English id est, from Latin id est.
More words from Middle English, Old English, Latin
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
id est. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/id%20est
“id est.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/id%20est. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “id est,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/id%20est.
Source: id est on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.