Written form of a reduction (apocope) or pronunciation spelling of kind of.
Meanings
(colloquial, not-comparable) Kind of; somewhat.
I kinda hafta do this right now.
… He got on Forty-second Street, and he was kinda fresh from the start. At Sixty-sixth he came sasshaying^([sic]) right down the car and said ‘Hello, patootie!’ Well, I drew myself up … 1920 April 10 – August 28, Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, chapter 11, in The Little Warrior [Jill the Reckless], New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 8 October 1920, →OCLC, section 1, page 194:
It makes me feel better that I’m not the only one who fantasizes about being struck down by a meteor on my way to work. Mind you, I’m not actively suicidal at all. I just kinda think being dead without actually killing myself would be easier and way less exhausting.” 2023 December 2, Tim Graham, “American Psychological Association Announces “Feeling Like Dying But Not Really Suicidal” New Baseline For Normal Mental Health”, in The Hard Times, archived from the original on 02 Aug 2025:
But when I spoke about it he just smiled and shook his head, and started whistling to himself kinda soft. 1912 October 12, Courtney Ryley Cooper, “Somewhere Safe to Sea”, in Collier’s, volume 50, Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, page 18:
That’s kinda funny.
The facial expression on my mask kinda looks like Han Solo in the carbonite … 2010, Eric Anthony Galvez, Reversal: When a Therapist Becomes a Patient, page 37:
In those days, flour sacks was kinda purty. They might come printed up with flowers on em, or birds. 2006, Ron Hall, Denver Moore, Lynn Vincent, Same Kind of Different as Me, page 13:
Written form of a reduction (apocope) or pronunciation spelling of kind of.
Meanings
Yes in some respects but no in other respects.
Ah, I see. Meely doesn't tease you. You're best friends, is that right? / Kinda. 2000, Ken Wells, Meely LaBauve, New York: Random House, →ISBN, page 212:
"Are you afraid of a little bit of rain?" "Kinda, yeah."
What kinda music do ya want ta play? Do ya want volume or somethin' more subtle? 2008, Jacob Curtis, The Song Itself: A Gnostic Remembrance, page 68:
Carmiesha had never once busted him in a lie, and she never had no kinda drama with him and no other chick. She damn sure couldn't say that for Dre. 2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 128:
After the town of Kinda, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Meanings
A subspecies of baboon, Papio cynocephalus kindae, primarily found in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, and possibly western Tanzania.
In the wild, when a baboon called a kinda pairs with a chacma or yellow baboon, their progeny is still a baboon — but it's a hybrid of interest to Society grantees Jane Phillips-Conroy and Clifford Jolly, who are tracking gene flow in Zambia's South Luangwa National Park. 2006, The National Geographic Magazine, volume 212, numbers 4-6, page 18: