Acronym for group ID. In a Unix-type operating system, the GID is a number which identifies a user as a member of one or more groups. A group is a collection of user ID's (UID) that may share access to certain files or resources. This is useful for allowing collaboration, or in restricting certain resources to a subset of the entire user base. A user may have more than one group ID. Group level access is one of the access types set using the chmod command. The effective group ID of a running process can be changed by a call to the setgid function- similar to the use of the setuid command.
Gid (?), n. [Cf. Giddy, a.]
A disease of sheep, characterized by vertigo; the staggers. It is caused by the presence of the Cenurus, a larval tapeworm, in the brain. See Cenurus.
© Webster 1913
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