Hĕlp1, v. t.
[imp. & p. p. HELPED (hĕlpt) (imp. HOLP, p. p. HOLPEN, obs.); p. pr. & vb. n. HELPING.] [A-S. & O. Sax. helpan, Goth. hilpan, D. helpen, Icel. hjálpa, Sw. hjelpa, Dan. hielpe, O. Fries. helfa, O. H. Ger. helfen, N. H. Ger. helfen, allied to Lith. gelbėti, and A S. & O. H. Ger. helan, to hele, hide, cover.]
Sense 1. To furnish 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 another in raising a building; to help one to remember.
Sense 2. To furnish with the means of deliverance from trouble or difficulty; as, to help one in distress; to help one out of prison.
Sense 3. To furnish with relief in pain or disease;—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.
Help and ease them, but by no means bemoan them. Locke. The true calamus helps coughs. Gerard.
Sense 4. To change for the better; to remedy.
Cease to lament for what thou canst not help. Shak.
Sense 5. To prevent; to hinder; as, the evil approaches, and who can help it?
Sense 6. To forbear; to avoid.
I can not help remarking the resemblance between him and our author. Pope.
To help forward, to advance by assistance.—To help off, to remove by help; as, to help off time. [Rare.] Locke.—To help on, to forward; to promote by aid.—To help out, to aid in delivering from difficulty, or to aid in completing a design.
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 a difficulty.—To help to, to supply with; to furnish with.—To help up, to sustain; also, to assist in rising, as after a fall, and the like. “A man is well help up that trusts to you.” Shak.
Synonyms—To aid; assist; succor; relieve; serve.—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-operation 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 me. 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 up stairs, or, he mounted the stairs by my assistance. When we say, he mounted by the assistance of his staff, the word “staff” is used figuratively. 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.