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helpmate

- 4 dictionary results

help⋅mate

  [help-meyt]
Use helpmate in a Sentence
–noun
1. a companion and helper.
2. a wife or husband.
3. anything that aids or assists, esp. regularly: This calculator is my constant helpmate.
Origin:
1705–15; help + mate 1 , by assoc. with helpmeet
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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help·mate   (hělp'māt')   
n.  A helper and companion, especially a spouse.

[Probably alteration of helpmeet (influenced by mate1).]
Word History: The existence of the synonyms helpmeet and helpmate is the result of an error compounded. God's promise to Adam in Genesis 2:18, as rendered in the King James version of the Bible (1611), was to give him "an help [helper] meet [fit or suitable] for him." The poet John Dryden's 1673 use of the phrase "help-meet for man," with a hyphen between help and meet, was one step on the way toward the establishment of the phrase "help meet" as an independent word. Another was the use of "help meet" without "for man" to mean a suitable helper, usually a spouse, as Eve had been to Adam. Despite such usages, helpmeet was not usually thought of as a word in its own right until the 19th century. Nonetheless, the phrase "help meet" probably played a role in the creation of helpmate, from help and mate, first recorded in 1715.
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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Helpmate

Help"mate`\, n. [A corruption of the "help meet for him" of --Genesis ii. 18.--Fitzedward Hall.] A helper; a companion; specifically, a wife.

In Minorca the ass and the hog are common helpmates, and are yoked together in order to turn up the land. --Pennant.

A waiting woman was generally considered as the most suitable helpmate for a parson. --Macaulay.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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helpmate 
"companion," 1715, a ghost word, altered from helpmeet, from the Biblical translation of L. adjutorium simile sibi [Gen. ii.18] as "an help meet (i.e. fit) for him" (Heb. 'ezer keneghdo), which was already by 1673 being printed as help-meet and mistaken for one word.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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