help

• enPR: hĕlp, IPA^(key): /hɛlp/
• (Southern American English, AAVE, dated) enPR: hĕp, IPA^(key): /hɛp/[1]
• Rhymes: -ɛlp

• Audio - 'to help' (UK)

  (file)

• Audio (US)

  (file)

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”).

help (usually uncountable, plural helps)

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

   I need some help with my homework.

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

   He was a great help to me when I was moving house.

3. Documentation provided with computer software, etc. and accessed using the computer.

   I can't find anything in the help about rotating an image.

4. (countable) A study aid.

   I've printed out a list of math helps.

   • c. 2002, “Scripture Study Helps”, in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints‎:

     In 1979 the Church published a Latter-day Saint edition of the King James Version of the Bible in English. Included in this edition were numerous helps to make a study of the scriptures more meaningful and rewarding.

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

   The help is coming round this morning to clean.

   Most of the hired help is seasonal, for the harvest.

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

   His suicide attempts were a cry for help.

   He really needs help in handling customer complaints.

   “He’s a real road-rager.” / “Yup, he really needs help, maybe anger management.”

• 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.

For quotations using this term, see Citations:help.

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

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”).

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).

   He helped his grandfather cook breakfast.

   • 2013 June 22, “Snakes and ladders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 76:

     Risk is everywhere. […] For each one there is a frighteningly precise measurement of just how likely it is to jump from the shadows and get you. “The Norm Chronicles” […] aims to help data-phobes find their way through this blizzard of risks.

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

   It is polite to help your guests to food before serving yourself.

   Help yourself to whatever's in the fridge.

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

   The white paint on the walls helps make the room look brighter.

   If you want to get a job, it helps to have some prior experience.

4. (intransitive) To provide assistance.

   She was struggling with the groceries, so I offered to help.

   Please, help!

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 19, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     As soon as Julia returned with a constable, Timothy, who was on the point of exhaustion, prepared to give over to him gratefully. The newcomer turned out to be a powerful youngster, fully trained and eager to help, and he stripped off his tunic at once.

   • 2013 June 29, “A punch in the gut”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, pages 72–3:

     Mostly, the microbiome is beneficial. It helps with digestion and enables people to extract a lot more calories from their food than would otherwise be possible. Research over the past few years, however, has implicated it in diseases from atherosclerosis to asthma to autism.

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

   We couldn’t help noticing that you were late.

   We couldn’t help but notice that you were late.

   She’s trying not to smile, but she can’t help herself.

   Can I help it if I'm so beautiful?

   Can I help it that I fell in love with you?

   Are they going to beat us? Not if I can help it!

   She never does more than she can help.

6. (Hong Kong) To do something on the behalf of someone.[2]

   Can you help me buy some groceries?

   Underlying meaning is “Can you go do the groceries for me?”

• 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

• (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

help!

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

   — Take that, you scoundrel.
   — Help! Robin, help!

   (Robin Hood (1973))

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

   helpppp that's too funny, did she rlly say that?

• Pehl

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈɦɛlp/

• Audio

  (file)

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

1. to help

• IPA^(key): /ɦɛlp/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛlp

help!

1. help!

• hellep, hellup

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

help

1. inflection of helpen:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. imperative

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

help

1. Help! (as a cry of distress)

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

• IPA^(key): /xelp/, [heɫp]

help f

1. help

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

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

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

• IPA^(key): /hɛlpʰ/

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

1. (Sylt) to help

help

1. first-person singular present indicative active of hjalpa

Borrowed from English help.

• IPA^(key): /hɛlp/

help m (uncountable, not mutable)

1. help, aid

   Synonyms: cymorth, cynhorthwy

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

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

• IPA^(key): /hɛlp/

help c (plural helpen, diminutive helpke)

1. help, assistance, aid

   Synonyms: assistinsje, bystân

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

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

• IPA^(key): /hɛɫp/

help

1. to help
   • 1867, “CASTEALE CUDDE'S LAMENTATION”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 6, page 104:

     He zide hea'de help mee udh o' hoan

     He said he'd help me out of hand

• 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