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help

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help

  [help]
–verb (used with object)
1. to give or provide what is necessary to accomplish a task or satisfy a need; contribute strength or means to; render assistance to; cooperate effectively with; aid; assist: He planned to help me with my work. Let me help you with those packages.
2. to save; rescue; succor: Help me, I'm falling!
3. to make easier or less difficult; contribute to; facilitate: The exercise of restraint is certain to help the achievement of peace.
4. to be useful or profitable to: Her quick mind helped her career.
5. to refrain from; avoid (usually prec. by can or cannot): He can't help doing it.
6. to relieve or break the uniformity of: Small patches of bright color can help an otherwise dull interior.
7. to relieve (someone) in need, sickness, pain, or distress.
8. to remedy, stop, or prevent: Nothing will help my headache.
9. to serve food to at table (usually fol. by to): Help her to salad.
10. to serve or wait on (a customer), as in a store.
–verb (used without object)
11. to give aid; be of service or advantage: Every little bit helps.
–noun
12. the act of helping; aid or assistance; relief or succor.
13. a person or thing that helps: She certainly is a help in an emergency.
14. a hired helper; employee.
15. a body of such helpers.
16. a domestic servant or a farm laborer.
17. means of remedying, stopping, or preventing: The thing is done, and there is no help for it now.
18. Older Use. helping (def. 2).
–interjection
19. (used as an exclamation to call for assistance or to attract attention.)
—Verb phrase
20. help out, to assist in an effort; be of aid to: Her relatives helped out when she became ill.
—Idioms
21. cannot or can't help but, to be unable to refrain from or avoid; be obliged to: Still, you can't help but admire her.
22. help oneself to,
a. to serve oneself; take a portion of: Help yourself to the cake.
b. to take or use without asking permission; appropriate: They helped themselves to the farmer's apples. Help yourself to any of the books we're giving away.
23. so help me, (used as a mild form of the oath “so help me God”) I am speaking the truth; on my honor: That's exactly what happened, so help me.
Use help in a Sentence
Origin:
bef. 900; ME helpen, OE helpan; c. G helfen

Related forms:
help⋅a⋅ble, adjective

Synonyms:
1. encourage, befriend; support, second, uphold, back, abet. Help, aid, assist, succor agree in the idea of furnishing another with something needed, esp. when the need comes at a particular time. Help implies furnishing anything that furthers one's efforts or relieves one's wants or necessities. Aid and assist, somewhat more formal, imply esp. a furthering or seconding of another's efforts. Aid implies a more active helping; assist implies less need and less help. To succor, still more formal and literary, is to give timely help and relief in difficulty or distress: Succor him in his hour of need. 3. further, promote, foster. 6. ameliorate. 7. alleviate, cure, heal. 12. support, backing.

Antonyms:
3, 11. hinder. 7. afflict. 13. hindrance.

Usage note:
21. Help but, in sentences like She's so clever you can't help but admire her, has been condemned by some as the ungrammatical version of cannot help admiring her, but the idiom is common in all kinds of speech and writing and can only be characterized as standard.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2010.
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help   (hělp)   
v.   helped, help·ing, helps

v.   tr.

  1. To give assistance to; aid: I helped her find the book. He helped me into my coat.

  2. To contribute to the furtherance of; promote.

  3. To give relief to: help the needy.

  4. To ease; relieve: medication to help your cold.

  5. To change for the better; improve: A fresh coat of paint will help a scarred old table.

  6. To refrain from; avoid or resist. Used with can or cannot: couldn't help laughing.

  7. To wait on, as in a store or restaurant.

v.   intr.
To be of service; give assistance.
n.  

    1. The act or an instance of helping.

    2. Aid or assistance.

  2. Relief; remedy.

  3. One that helps: You've been a great help. A food processor is a help to the serious cook.

  4. A person employed to help, especially a farm worker or domestic servant.

    Such employees considered as a group. Often used with the.


[Middle English helpen, from Old English helpan.]
Synonyms: These verbs mean to contribute to the fulfillment of a need, the furtherance of an effort, or the achievement of a purpose or end. Help and aid, the most general, are frequently interchangeable: a medication that helps (or aids) the digestion.
Help, however, sometimes conveys a stronger suggestion of effectual action: I'll help you move the piano.
Assist usually implies making a secondary contribution or acting as a subordinate: Apprentices assisted the chef in preparing the banquet.
Succor refers to going to the relief of one in want, difficulty, or distress: "Mr. Harding thought . . . of the worn-out, aged men he had succored" (Anthony Trollope). See Also Synonyms at improve.
Usage Note: Many people commonly use help in the sense conveyed in the sentence Don't change it any more than you can help (that is, "any more than you have to"). Some grammarians condemn this usage on the grounds that help in this sense means "avoid" and therefore logically requires a negative. But the expression is a well-established idiom. See Usage Note at cannot.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

help 
O.E. helpan (class III strong verb; past tense healp, pp. holpen), from P.Gmc. *khelpanan (cf. O.N. hjalpa, O.Fris. helpa, Du. helpen, Ger. helfen), from PIE base *kelb-/*kelp- "to help" (cf. Lith. selpiu "to support, help"). Sense of "serve someone with foot at table" (1688) is translated from Fr. servir "to help, stead, avail," and led to helping "portion of food" (1824). Use of help as euphemism for "servant" is Amer.Eng., 1645, tied up in notions of class and race.
"A domestic servant of American birth, and without negro blood in his or her veins ... is not a servant, but a 'help.' 'Help wanted,' is the common heading of advertisements in the North, when servants are required." [Chas. Mackay, "Life and Liberty in America," 1859].
The M.E. pp. holpen survives in biblical and U.S. dial. use.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Computing Dictionary

HELP
1. DEA. A Language for industrial robots.
2. (Help Est un Lisp Paresseux - Help Is a Lazy Lisp). A lazy version of Scheme with strictness annotations, by Thomas Schiex .

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
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Idioms & Phrases

help

In addition to the idioms beginning with help, also see can't help but; every little bit helps; not if one can help it; so help me.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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Abbreviations & Acronyms
HELP
Health Education Library for People
The American Heritage® Abbreviations Dictionary, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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