different between help vs meddle

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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 medlen, from Anglo-Norman medler, variant of Anglo-Norman and Old French mesler, meller, from Vulgar Latin *miscul?, from Latin misce? (“to mix”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?m?d.?l/, /?m?dl?/
• Rhymes: -?d?l
• Homophones: medal, metal, mettle (in accents with flapping)

Verb

meddle (third-person singular simple present meddles, present participle meddling, simple past and past participle meddled)

2. To interfere in or with; to concern oneself with unduly. [from 14^thc.]

   • Why shouldest thou meddle to thy hurt?

   • 1689, John Locke, Two Treatises on Civil Government

     The civil lawyers […] have meddled in a matter that belongs not to them.
3. (obsolete) To interest or engage oneself; to have to do (with), in a good sense.
   • 1560, Geneva Bible, Thessalonians 4:11

     Study to be quiet, and to meddle with your own business.

   • a. 1677, Isaac Barrow, The Usefulness of Mathematical Learning Explained and Demonstrated

     The Pythagoreans who, as Aristotle says, were the first among the Greeks, that meddled with Mathematics

4. (obsolete) To mix (something) with some other substance; to commingle, combine, blend. [14^th-17^thc.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.i:

     he cut a locke of all their heare, / Which medling with their bloud and earth, he threw / Into the graue […].

5. (intransitive, now US regional) To have sex. [from 14^thc.]

Synonyms

• (to interfere in or with): dabble, stick one's nose into, stick one's oar in
• (to mix): bemingle, combine, ming; see also Thesaurus:mix
• (to have sex): do it, get it on, ming; see also Thesaurus:copulate

Derived terms

• meddle and make
• meddlement
• meddlesome
• meddler

Translations

Anagrams

• melded