different between help vs befriend

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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

English

Etymology

From be- +? friend. Compare Saterland Frisian befrüündje (“to befriend”), Dutch bevrienden (“to befriend”), German Low German befründen (“to befriend”),German befreunden (“to befriend”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: b?fr?nd, IPA^(key): /b??f??nd/
• Rhymes: -?nd

Verb

befriend (third-person singular simple present befriends, present participle befriending, simple past and past participle befriended)

1. (transitive) To become a friend of, to make friends with.
   • 1854, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, p. 143.

     Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me.
2. (transitive, dated) To act as a friend to, to assist.
   • 1731, Jonathan Swift, Directions to Servants

     Brother servants must always befriend one another.
3. (transitive) To favor.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

     If it will please Caesar / To be so good to Caesar, as to hear me, / I shall beseech him to befriend himself.

   • 1709, John Denham "The Sophy", in Poems and translations: with the Sophy, a tragedy, Fifth edition [1]

     Now if your plots be ripe, you are befriended / With opportunity.

   • 1709, Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism

     Be thou the first true merit to befriend; / His praise is lost, who stays till all commend.

   • 1712, Joseph Addison, Cato: A tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, by His Majesty's servants, Act II, edited and published by Jacob Tonson (1733)

     See them embarked, And tell me if the winds and seas befriend them.

   • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, ch. 4, "Morrison's Pill"

     This Universe has its Laws. If we walk according to the Law, the Law-Maker will befriend us; if not, not.

Antonyms

• befoe
• defriend
• unfriend

Derived terms

• befriender
• befriendment
• unbefriended
• unbefriending

Related terms

• friend
• friendly

Translations