different between floor vs help

English

Etymology

From Middle English flor, flore, from Old English fl?r (“floor, pavement, ground, bottom”), from Proto-Germanic *fl?r?, *fl?rô, *fl?raz (“flat surface, floor, plain”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleh?ros (“floor”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleh?- (“flat”). Cognate with West Frisian flier (“floor”), Dutch vloer (“floor”), German Flur (“field, floor, entrance hall”), Swedish flor (“floor of a cow stall”), Irish urlár (“floor”), Scottish Gaelic làr (“floor, ground, earth”), Welsh llawr (“floor, ground”), Latin pl?nus (“level, flat”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: flô, IPA^(key): /fl??/
• (General American) enPR: flôr, IPA^(key): /fl??/
• (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) enPR: fl?r, IPA^(key): /flo(?)?/
• (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /flo?/
• Rhymes: -??(?)
• Homophone: flaw (in non-rhotic accents with the horse–hoarse merger)
• Homophones: flow, floe (non-rhotic with dough-door merger (AAVE, non-rhotic Southern accents))

Noun

floor (plural floors)

1. The interior bottom or surface of a house or building; the supporting surface of a room.

   • A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire.

2. Ground (surface of the Earth, as opposed to the sky or water or underground).
3. The lower inside surface of a hollow space.

4. A structure formed of beams, girders, etc, with proper covering, which divides a building horizontally into storeys/stories.
5. The supporting surface or platform of a structure such as a bridge.

6. A storey/story of a building.
7. In a parliament, the part of the house assigned to the members, as opposed to the viewing gallery.
8. Hence, the right to speak at a given time during a debate or other public event.

9. (nautical) That part of the bottom of a vessel on each side of the keelson which is most nearly horizontal.
10. (mining) A horizontal, flat ore body; the rock underlying a stratified or nearly horizontal deposit.
11. (mining) The bottom of a pit, pothole or mine.
12. (mathematics) The largest integer less than or equal to a given number.

13. (gymnastics) An event performed on a floor-like carpeted surface.
14. (gymnastics) A floor-like carpeted surface for performing gymnastic movements.
15. (finance) A lower limit on the interest rate payable on an otherwise variable-rate loan, used by lenders to defend against falls in interest rates. Opposite of a cap.
16. A dance floor.
    • 1983, "Maniac", Michael Sembello and Dennis Matkosky:

      She's a maniac, maniac on the floor / And she's dancing like she never danced before

    • 1987, "Walk the Dinosaur", Was (Not Was):

      Open the door, get on the floor / Everybody walk the dinosaur

17. The trading floor of a stock exchange, pit; the area in which business is conducted at a convention or exhibition.

Synonyms

• (bottom part of a room): see Thesaurus:floor
• (right to speak): possession (UK)

Antonyms

• ceiling

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Verb

floor (third-person singular simple present floors, present participle flooring, simple past and past participle floored)

1. To cover or furnish with a floor.
2. To strike down or lay level with the floor; to knock down.
3. (driving, slang) To accelerate rapidly.

4. To silence by a conclusive answer or retort.
5. To amaze or greatly surprise.
6. (colloquial) To finish or make an end of.

7. (mathematics) To set a lower bound.

Translations

Further reading

• Floor (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Floor in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

References

Anagrams

• Floro

Middle English

Noun

floor

1. Alternative form of flor

For help with Wiktionary, see Help:Contents.

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: h?lp, IPA^(key): /h?lp/
• Rhymes: -?lp

Etymology 1

From Middle English help, from Old English help (“help, aid, assistance, relief”), from Proto-Germanic *help? (“help”), *hilpiz, *hulpiz, from Proto-Indo-European *?elb-, *?elp- (“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”).

Noun

help (usually uncountable, plural helps)

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

2. (usually uncountable) Something or someone which provides assistance with a task.

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

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

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

Usage notes

• 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.

Quotations

For quotations using this term, see Citations:help.

Synonyms

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

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English helpen, from Old English helpan (“to help, aid, assist, benefit, relieve, cure”), from Proto-West Germanic *helpan, Proto-Germanic *helpan? (“to help”), from Proto-Indo-European *?elb-, *?elp- (“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”).

Verb

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).

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

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

4. (intransitive) To provide assistance.

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

Usage notes

• 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

Synonyms

• (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

Derived terms

Translations

Interjection

help!

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

   (Robin Hood (1973))

Translations

Anagrams

• Pehl

Afrikaans

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???lp/

Verb

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

1. to help

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -?lp

Verb

help

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

Esperanto

Etymology

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

Interjection

help

1. Help! (as a cry of distress)

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *help?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /xelp/, [he?p]

Noun

help f

1. help

Descendants

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

References

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

Old Norse

Verb

help

1. first-person singular present indicative active of hjalpa

Welsh

Etymology

Borrowed from English help.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /h?lp/

Noun

help m (uncountable, not mutable)

1. help, aid

   Synonyms: cymorth, cynhorthwy

Derived terms

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

West Frisian

Etymology

From Old Frisian helpe, from Proto-Germanic *help?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /h?lp/

Noun

help c (plural helpen, diminutive helpke)

1. help, assistance, aid

   Synonyms: assistinsje, bystân

Further reading

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