Feminine
Meaning

  1. (feminine, uncountable, usually) help, aid
  2. (countable, feminine) help, aid

Frequency

A1
Dialects

Basel-Landschaft

Basel-Landschaft

hilff

Zürich

Zürich

hilfe

Zürich

Zürich

hilf

Data provided by: Deutsch-Schweizerdeutsches Wörterbuch

Pronounced as (IPA)
/ˈhɪlfə/
Etymology

In summary

From Middle High German helfe, hilfe, from Old High German helfa, hilfa, from Proto-West Germanic [Term?], from Proto-Germanic *helpō, *hilpiz (“help”), from Proto-Germanic *helpaną (“to help”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱelb-, *ḱelp- (“to help”). Among the three Middle High German variants helfe, hilfe, hülfe, the i-form is phonetically intermediate, but in Modern German the northern Hülfe was long predominant. Hilfe was supported, however, by the parallelism with du hilfst, er hilft, and was declared the exclusive standard during the spelling reforms of the early 20th century.

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