kick in

verb

kicked in; kicking in; kicks in

transitive verb

: contribute

intransitive verb

1

: to begin operating or having an effect : get started

waiting for the heater to kick in

2

: to make a contribution

3

slang : die

Synonyms

• chip in
• contribute
• pitch in

Examples of kick in in a Sentence

if everyone in the department kicks in, we can give him an especially nice present for his retirement

the ornery cuss finally kicked in at the ripe old age of 90

Recent Examples on the Web

Subscribe today In just a few hours, Trump tariffs will kick in — which includes a ghastly 104% duty on Chinese imports. —Yeo Boon Ping, CNBC, 9 Apr. 2025

This enables it to be connected to a fiber broadband service and kick in if the main Internet goes down and many businesses like to have a fail-back service for redundancy. —Mark Sparrow, Forbes.com, 9 Apr. 2025

Planned higher reciprocal tariff rates for other specific countries on top of the 10% baseline duty implemented on Saturday also will kick in at midnight. —Medora Lee, USA Today, 8 Apr. 2025

Thank God the nursing staff came ready with some juice and anti-nausea medication, which took mere seconds to kick in. —Nicola Dall'asen, Allure, 7 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1906, in the meaning defined at transitive sense

Rhymes for kick in

• chicken
• likin
• quicken
• sicken
• stricken
• thicken
• indican

Kids Definition

kick in

verb

1

: contribute sense 1

2

: start sense 2