help

English Online Dictionary. What means help‎? What does help mean?

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: hĕlp, IPA^(key): /hɛlp/
• (Southern US, African-American Vernacular, dated) enPR: hĕp, IPA^(key): /hɛp/
• Rhymes: -ɛlp

Etymology 1

From Middle English help, from Old English help (“help, aid, assistance, relief”), from Proto-Germanic *helpō (“help”), *hilpiz, *hulpiz, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱelb-, *ḱelp- (“to help”).

Cognate with Saterland Frisian Hälpe (“help”), West Frisian help (“help”), Dutch hulp (“help”), Low German Hülp (“help”), German Hilfe (“help, aid, assistance”), Danish hjælp (“help”), Swedish hjälp (“help”), Norwegian hjelp (“help”).

Noun

help (usually uncountable, plural helps)

1. (uncountable) Action given to provide assistance; aid.

2. Something or someone which provides assistance with a task.

3. (computing) Documentation provided with computer software that could be accessed using the computer.

4. (countable) A study aid.
5. (usually uncountable) One or more people employed to help in the maintenance of a house or the operation of a farm or enterprise.

6. (uncountable) Correction of deficits, as by psychological counseling or medication or social support or remedial training.

Usage notes

• The sense “people employed to help in the maintenance of a house” is usually an uncountable mass noun. A countable form — “a hired help”, “two hired helps” — is attested, but now less common. Helper could be used if no more specific noun is available.

Quotations

For quotations using this term, see Citations:help.

Synonyms

• (action given to provide assistance): aid, assistance

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English helpen, from Old English helpan (“to help, aid, assist, benefit, relieve, cure”), from Proto-West Germanic *helpan, Proto-Germanic *helpaną (“to help”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱelb-, *ḱelp- (“to help”).

Cognate with West Frisian helpe (“to help”), Dutch helpen (“to help”), Low German helpen, hölpen (“to help”), German helfen (“to help”), Danish hjælpe (“to help”), Norwegian hjelpe (“to help”), Lithuanian šelpti (“to help, support”).

Verb

help (third-person singular simple present helps, present participle helping, simple past helped or (archaic) holp, past participle helped or (archaic) holpen)

1. (transitive) To provide assistance to (someone or something).
2. (transitive) To assist (a person) in getting something, especially food or drink at table; used with to.

3. (transitive) To contribute in some way to.

4. (intransitive) To provide assistance.
5. (transitive) To avoid; to prevent; to refrain from; to restrain (oneself). Usually used in nonassertive contexts with can.

6. (Hong Kong) To do something on the behalf of someone.

Usage notes

• Use 4 is often used in the imperative mood as a call for assistance.
• In uses 1, 2, 3 and 4, this is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive. It can also take the bare infinitive with no change in meaning.
• In use 5, can't help is a catenative verb that takes the gerund (-ing) or, with but, the bare infinitive.
• For more information, see Appendix:English catenative verbs

Conjugation

Synonyms

• (provide assistance to): aid, assist, come to the aid of, help out; See also Thesaurus:help
• (contribute in some way to): contribute to
• (provide assistance): assist; See also Thesaurus:assist

Derived terms

Translations

Interjection

help!

1. A cry of distress or an urgent request for assistance

   (Robin Hood (1973))

2. (Internet slang, text messaging) A way to signal uncontrollable laughter; implying the risk of dying of laughter and needing assistance.

Translations

References

Anagrams

• Pehl

Afrikaans

Etymology

From Dutch helpen, from Middle Dutch helpen, from Old Dutch helpan, from Proto-West Germanic *helpan, from Proto-Germanic *helpaną.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɦɛlp/

Verb

help (present help, present participle helpende, past participle gehelp)

1. to help

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɦɛlp/
• Rhymes: -ɛlp

Etymology 1

Interjection

help!

1. help!

Alternative forms

• hellep, hellup

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

help

1. inflection of helpen:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
   3. imperative

Esperanto

Etymology

From the bare root of helpi, following the model of English help! considered as internationally understood.

Interjection

help

1. Help! (as a cry of distress)

North Frisian

Etymology

From Old Frisian helpa, from Proto-West Germanic *helpan.

Pronunciation

• (Sylt) IPA^(key): /hɛlpʰ/

Verb

help (present help, 2nd singular helpst, 3rd singular helpt, past holp, perfect holpen)

1. (Heligoland, Sylt) to help

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *helpu, from Proto-Germanic *helpō.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /xelp/, [heɫp]

Noun

help f

1. help

Declension

Descendants

• Middle English: help
  • English: help
  • Scots: help

References

• Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller (1898) “help”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary‎^[2], 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Old Norse

Verb

help

1. first-person singular present indicative active of hjalpa

Welsh

Etymology

Borrowed from English help.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /hɛlp/

Noun

help m (uncountable, not mutable)

1. help, aid

   Synonyms: cymorth, cynhorthwy

Derived terms

• help llaw (“a helping hand”)
• helpu (“to help”)

West Frisian

Etymology

From Old Frisian helpe, from Proto-Germanic *helpō.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /hɛlp/

Noun

help c (plural helpen, diminutive helpke)

1. help, assistance, aid

   Synonyms: assistinsje, bystân

Further reading

• “help (I)”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011

Yola

Etymology

From Middle English helpen, from Old English helpan, from Proto-West Germanic *helpan.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /hɛɫp/

Verb

help

1. to help

References

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 104