You searched for: “aiding and abetting
aid and abet (verb), aids and abets; aided and abetted; aiding and abetting
1. To help a person, or people, to commit a crime: The lawyer's client was aiding and abetting the bank robbers by driving the getaway car.
2. Etymology: This terminology is considered to be a lawyer's redundancy since abet means the same thing as aid, which gives credence to the old rumor that lawyers used to be paid by the word as illustrated by the following statements as shown below.

To help, assist, or to facilitate the commission of a crime, to promote the accomplishment thereof, to help in advancing or bringing it about, or to encourage, counsel, or to incite as to its commission.

Aid and abet includes all the assistance rendered by words, acts, encouragement, support, or presence, actual or constructive, to render assistance if necessary.

—Compiled from information provided by Black's Law Dictionary;
Sixth Edition; by Henry Campbell Black, M.A.; West Publishing Co.;
St. Paul, Minn; 1990, page 68.
This entry is located in the following unit: English Words in Action, Group A (page 3)
aiding and abetting (adjective), more aiding and abetting, most aiding and abetting
A reference to helping, assisting, or facilitating the commission of a crime and to promote the accomplishment thereof; as well as, to help in advancing or bringing it about, or encouraging it, counseling, or inciting its commission: The lawyer tried to reassure Jim that the aiding and abetting charge would not hold up in court.

Legally, aiding and abetting describes any and all assistance rendered by words, acts, encouragement, support, or presence, actual or constructive, and to render assistance, if necessary; and are obviously derived from a combination of aid and abet:

  • Aid means "to support, to help, to assist, or to strengthen".
  • Act in cooperation with; to supplement the efforts of another person or other people.
  • Distinguished from abet, aid within the aider and abettor statue means "to help, to assist", or "to strengthen"; while abet means "to counsel, to encourage, to incite, or to assist" in the commission of a criminal act.
—Compiled from information located in
Black's Law Dictionary, 6th edition; by Henry Campbell Black, M.A.;
West Publishing Co.; St. Paul. Minnesota; 1990; page 68.
This entry is located in the following unit: English Words in Action, Group A (page 3)