different between help vs hint

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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 Middle English hinten, hynten, variant of henten (“to lay hold of, catch”), from Old English hentan (“to seize, grasp”), from Proto-Germanic *hantijan?. More at hent. Related to hunt.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /h?nt/
• Rhymes: -?nt

Noun

hint (plural hints)

1. A clue.

2. A tacit suggestion that avoids a direct statement.

3. A small, barely detectable amount of.
4. (computing) Information in a computer-based font that suggests how the outlines of the font's glyphs should be distorted in order to produce, at specific sizes, a visually appealing pixel-based rendering; an instance of hinting.

5. (obsolete) An opportunity; occasion; fit time.
   • 1610, The Tempest, by Shakespeare, act 1 scene 2

     I, not remembering how I cried out then, / Will cry it o'er again: it is a hint / That wrings mine eyes to't.

Synonyms

• (small amount): see also Thesaurus:modicum.

Descendants

Translations

Verb

hint (third-person singular simple present hints, present participle hinting, simple past and past participle hinted)

1. (intransitive) To suggest tacitly without a direct statement; to provide a clue.

   She hinted at the possibility of a recount of the votes.
2. (transitive) To bring to mind by a slight mention or remote allusion; to suggest in an indirect manner.

   to hint a suspicion

   • We shall not describe this tragical scene too fully; but we thought ourselves obliged, by that historic integrity which we profess, shortly to hint a matter which we would otherwise have been glad to have spared.

3. (transitive) To develop and add hints to a font.

   The typographer worked all day on hinting her new font so it would look good on computer screens.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:allude

Translations

Anagrams

• Nith, thin, thin'

Danish

Etymology 1

From English hint

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?hen?d?]

Noun

hint n (singular definite hintet, plural indefinite hint or hints)

1. hint, clue

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the main entry.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?hi?nd?], [hind?]

Pronoun

hint

1. neuter singular of hin

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowing from English hint.

Pronunciation

Noun

hint f or m (plural hints, diminutive hintje n)

1. hint

Synonyms

• aanwijzing

See also

• tip

Verb

hint

1. first-, second- and third-person singular present indicative of hinten
2. imperative of hinten

Hungarian

Etymology

From an unattested stem of unknown origin + -t (causative suffix).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?hint]
• Hyphenation: hint
• Rhymes: -int

Verb

hint

1. (transitive) to scatter, sprinkle (to cause a substance to fall in fine drops (for a liquid substance) or small pieces (for a solid substance))

   Synonyms: szór, hullat

Conjugation

Derived terms

• hintés

(With verbal prefixes):

References

Further reading

• hint in Bárczi, Géza and László Országh: A magyar nyelv értelmez? szótára (’The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: ?ISBN

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From English hint.

Noun

hint n (definite singular hintet, indefinite plural hint, definite plural hinta or hintene)

1. a hint
   • 2014, "Grepet av deg" by Sylvia Day, Bastion Forlag ?ISBN [3]

References

• “hint” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
• “hint” in Det Norske Akademis ordbok (NAOB).

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From English hint.

Noun

hint n (definite singular hintet, indefinite plural hint, definite plural hinta)

1. a hint

References

• “hint” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Yola

Etymology

From Middle English hunten, from Old English huntian.

Verb

hint

1. hunt

References

• Jacob Poole (1867) , William Barnes, editor, A glossary, with some pieces of verse, of the old dialect of the English colony in the baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, J. Russell Smith, ?ISBN