holp

See also: Holp

English

From Middle English holp (first and third person singular past indicative of helpen (“to help”)), from Old English healp (same form of helpan (“to help”)), from Proto-Germanic *halp (same form of *helpaną (“to help”)). Cognate with German half, Middle Dutch holp (in modern Dutch replaced with hielp). More at help.

holp

(archaic) simple past of help: helped.
- c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]:
  Thou art my warrior; I holp to frame thee.
- 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:
  Both, both, my girl. / By foul play, as thou sayest, were we heav'd thence, / But blessedly holp hither.
(Southern US, African-American Vernacular, obsolete) Synonym of help.
- 1930, William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying‎^[1], page 33:
  Like most folks around here, I done holp him so much already I can't quit now.

^ Hall, Joseph Sargent (2 March 1942) “3. The Consonants”, in The Phonetics of Great Smoky Mountain Speech (American Speech: Reprints and Monographs; 4), New York: King's Crown Press, →DOI, →ISBN, § 2, page 88.