different between help vs sympathy
help
- 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)
- (uncountable) Action given to provide assistance; aid.
- (usually uncountable) Something or someone which provides assistance with a task.
- Documentation provided with computer software, etc. and accessed using the computer.
- (usually uncountable) One or more people employed to help in the maintenance of a house or the operation of a farm or enterprise.
- (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)
- (transitive) To provide assistance to (someone or something).
- (transitive) To assist (a person) in getting something, especially food or drink at table; used with to.
- (transitive) To contribute in some way to.
- (intransitive) To provide assistance.
- (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!
- 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)
- to help
Dutch
Pronunciation
- Rhymes: -?lp
Verb
help
- first-person singular present indicative of helpen
- imperative of helpen
Esperanto
Etymology
From the bare root of helpi, following the model of English help! considered as internationally understood.
Interjection
help
- Help! (as a cry of distress)
Old English
Etymology
From Proto-Germanic *help?.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /xelp/, [he?p]
Noun
help f
- 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
- 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)
- 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)
- help, assistance, aid
- Synonyms: assistinsje, bystân
Further reading
- “help (I)”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011
help From the web:
- what helps with nausea
- what helps with constipation
- what helps with cramps
- what helps heartburn
- what helps a sore throat
- what helps with bloating
- what helps acid reflux
- what helps with headaches
sympathy
English
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French sympathie, from Late Latin sympath?a (“feeling in common”), from Ancient Greek ?????????? (sumpátheia, “fellow feeling”), from ???????? (sumpath?s, “affected by like feelings; exerting mutual influence, interacting”) +? -?? (-ia, “-y”, nominal suffix); equivalent to sym- (“acting or considered together”) +? -pathy (“feeling”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /?s?m.p??.i/
- Rhymes: -?mp??i
Noun
sympathy (countable and uncountable, plural sympathies)
- A feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another.
- Synonym: compassion
- (in the plural) The formal expression of pity or sorrow for someone else's misfortune.
- The ability to share the feelings of another.
- Inclination to think or feel alike; emotional or intellectual accord; common feeling.
- (in the plural) Support in the form of shared feelings or opinions.
- Feeling of loyalty; tendency towards, agreement with or approval of an opinion or aim; a favorable attitude.
- An affinity, association or mutual relationship between people or things such that they are correspondingly affected by any condition.
- Mutual or parallel susceptibility or a condition brought about by it.
- (art) Artistic harmony, as of shape or colour in a painting.
Usage notes
- Used similarly to empathy, interchangeably in looser usage. In stricter usage, empathy is stronger and more intimate, while sympathy is weaker and more distant; see empathy: usage notes.
Antonyms
- contempt (context-dependent)
Derived terms
Translations
References
- “sympathy”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.
- “sympathy”, in Merriam–Webster Online Dictionary, (Please provide a date or year).
sympathy From the web:
- what sympathy means
- what sympathy gift to send
- what sympathy cards say
- what's sympathy for the devil about
- what's sympathy pain
- what sympathy does mean
- what sympathy card
- what sympathy tamil meaning
you may also like
- help vs sympathy
- worthwhile vs moneymaking
- intimation vs indicating
- libertine vs libidinous
- senseless vs farcical
- craven vs debased
- subjective vs chance
- unfavourable vs harmful
- dynamic vs grand
- sacrilegious vs pagan
- experience vs case
- confined vs jammed
- ridge vs barrow
- lash vs hit
- immature vs unwary
- fiction vs invention
- shroud vs cloud
- arousal vs shock
- attraction vs facility
- hand vs digit