The Collaborative International Dictionary
Help \Help\ (h[e^]lp), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Helped (h[e^]lpt) (Obs. imp. Holp (h[=o]lp), p. p. Holpen (h[=o]l"p'n)); p. pr. & vb. n. Helping.] [AS. helpan; akin to OS. helpan, D. helpen, G. helfen, OHG. helfan, Icel. hj[=a]lpa, Sw. hjelpa, Dan. hielpe, Goth. hilpan; cf. Lith. szelpti, and Skr. klp to be fitting.]
To furnish with strength or means for the successful performance of any action or the attainment of any object; to aid; to assist; as, to help a man in his work; to help one to remember; -- the following infinitive is commonly used without to; as, ``Help me scale yon balcony.''
--Longfellow.To furnish with the means of deliverance from trouble; as, to help one in distress; to help one out of prison. ``God help, poor souls, how idly do they talk!''
--Shak.-
To furnish with relief, as in pain or disease; to be of avail against; -- sometimes with of before a word designating the pain or disease, and sometimes having such a word for the direct object. ``To help him of his blindness.''
--Shak.The true calamus helps coughs.
--Gerarde. -
To change for the better; to remedy.
Cease to lament for what thou canst not help.
--Shak. To prevent; to hinder; as, the evil approaches, and who can help it?
--Swift.-
To forbear; to avoid.
I can not help remarking the resemblance betwixt him and our author.
--Pope. -
To wait upon, as the guests at table, by carving and passing food.
To help forward, to assist in advancing.
To help off, to help to go or pass away, as time; to assist in removing.
--Locke.To help on, to forward; to promote by aid.
To help out, to aid, as in delivering from a difficulty, or to aid in completing a design or task.
The god of learning and of light Would want a god himself to help him out.
--Swift.To help over, to enable to surmount; as, to help one over an obstacle.
To help to, to supply with; to furnish with; as, to help one to soup.
To help up, to help (one) to get up; to assist in rising, as after a fall, and the like. ``A man is well holp up that trusts to you.''
--Shak.Syn: To aid; assist; succor; relieve; serve; support; sustain; befriend.
Usage: To Help, Aid, Assist. These words all agree in the idea of affording relief or support to a person under difficulties. Help turns attention especially to the source of relief. If I fall into a pit, I call for help; and he who helps me out does it by an act of his own. Aid turns attention to the other side, and supposes co["o]peration on the part of him who is relieved; as, he aided me in getting out of the pit; I got out by the aid of a ladder which he brought. Assist has a primary reference to relief afforded by a person who ``stands by'' in order to relieve. It denotes both help and aid. Thus, we say of a person who is weak, I assisted him upstairs, or, he mounted the stairs by my assistance. When help is used as a noun, it points less distinctively and exclusively to the source of relief, or, in other words, agrees more closely with aid. Thus we say, I got out of a pit by the help of my friend.
Holp \Holp\, Holpen \Hol"pen\,
imp. & p. p. of Help. [Obs.]
--Shak.
Wiktionary
vb. (context archaic English) (en-simple past of: help)
Usage examples of "holp".
Cynthy, we-all in trebbilation and we gotter holp dis hyer pore chile.
He asked Ged about Gont, and then spoke fondly of his own home isles of the East Reach, telling how the smoke of village hearthfires is blown across that quiet sea at evening between the small islands with funny names: Korp, Kopp, and Holp, Venway and Vemish, Ifiish, Koppish, and Sneg.
He seemed not much more than a boy, for there was no gift or scourge of mage-power in him, and he had never been anywhere but Iffish, Tok, and Holp, and his life was easy and untroubled.
In Iffish they say it was Estarriol who sailed that boat, but in Tok they say it was two fishermen blown by a storm far out on the Open Sea, and in Holp the tale is of a Holpish fisherman, and tells that he could not move his boat from the unseen sands it grounded on, and so wanders there yet.
Like most folks around here, I done holp him so much already I cant quit now.
But straight, withoute wordes rehearsing, Evereach of them holp to arm the other, As friendly, as he were his owen brother.
He rode the man-cars down the narrow throat of the mountain into the unchanging clammy coolness of its innards, and all day holp the miner drill and shoot the coal.
Which reckon you the play under compulsion, that which holp to free your heretic Queen, or that which would have praised a Catholic King?
Us used to holp de older slaves git out whiteoak splits, and dey larnt us to make cheer bottoms and baskets out of dem splits.
Rogers hath holpen our enterprise, it is right that he should share the spoil.
Aurelius, Thank you, my Lord, and lady mine Venus, That me have holpen from my cares cold.
Are we, most holpen, when we meet Thee and thy Bridget in the street, Upon that tearful errand set-- So often trod, so patient yet!
Alas, said the king, this is unto me a full heavy sight to see this noble duke so die for my sake, for he would have holpen me that had more need of help than I.
Therewith he drank nigh a skinful of sweet dark Thramnian wine, in such sort that an hour before midnight, becoming speechless, he was holpen by Gro to his couch and slept a great deep sleep till morning.