Help is native and old, from Old English helpan, with cousins across the whole family — German helfen, Dutch helpen, Old Norse hjalpa. It is the bottom rung of a three-word ladder: help is English, aid came from French, assist came from Latin by way of French. All three mean the same thing and sit at different social heights.
The verb was originally strong, changing its vowel for the past tense rather than adding -ed: helpan, healp, holpen. Holpen survived into the King James Bible and then died, and help became regular — the fate of most English strong verbs. The sense of serving someone food at table is from the 1680s, translated from French servir, and gave us a helping of something. Help yourself as an invitation dates only from 1894.
help (v.) Old English helpan "to help, support, succor; benefit, do good to; cure, amend" (transitive, class III strong verb; past tense healp , past participle holpen ), from Proto-Germanic *helpanan (source also of Old Norse hjalpa , Old Frisian helpa , Middle Dutch and Dutch helpen , Old High German helfan , German helfen ), a word of uncertain origin. Perhaps it is cognate with Lithuanian šelpiu, šelpti "to support, help." The intransitive sense of "afford aid or assistance," is attested from early 13c. The word is recorded as a cry of distress from late 14c. The sense of "serve someone with food at table" (1680s) is translated from French servir "to help, stead, avail," and led to helping (n.) "portion of food." Help yourself as an invitation, in reference to food, etc., is from 1894. Related: Helped (c. 1300). The Middle English past participle holpen survives in biblical and U.S. dialectal use. help (n.) Old English help (m.), helpe (f.) "assistance, succor," from Proto-Germanic *helpo (source also of Old Norse hjalp , Swedish hjälp , Old Frisian helpe , Dutch hulp , Old High German helfa , German Hilfe ), from the source of help (v.). The use of help as euphemism for "servant" is American English, 1640s (originally in New England). Bartlett (1848) describes it as "The common name in New England for servants, and for the operatives in a cotton or woollen factory." Most early 19c. English writers travelling in America seem to have taken a turn at explaining this to the home folks. A domestic servant of American birth, and without negro blood in his or her veins ... is not a servant, but a 'help.' 'Help wanted,' is the common heading of advertisements in the North, when servants are required. [Chas. Mackay, "Life and Liberty in America," 1859]. But help also meant "assistant, helper, supporter" in Middle English (c. 1200).
help came in through Old English, and its spelling follows that family's conventions.
On the register ladder
English kept all three words for this idea, one from each layer, and the rung is itself the cue: the native word is blunt and concrete, the French one polite, the Latin one formal or technical.
| Old English | French | Latin |
|---|---|---|
| help | aid | assist |
Old English in the spelling guide · guess another word's family