Holpen

Part of speech: verb, adjective

Definitions

1. Assisted or aided someone in the archaic or poetic past participle form
2. Gave support or relief to another person in an older English construction
3. Rendered assistance or made something easier for someone using the archaic verbal form

Etymology: "Holpen" is an archaic past participle of "help," surviving mostly in older English and in Bible-style or poetic usage. Its ancestry runs back through Middle English "holpen" and "yholpen," the latter carrying the Middle English prefix "y-" that marked a past participle, to Old English "geholpen," the past participle of "helpan." Behind that lies the Proto-Germanic form "hulpanaz," which was the participle of the verb "helpan," meaning "to help." The same form appears in the modern Germanic languages. Dutch has "geholpen" and German has "geholfen," both meaning the same thing as the English word and both built from the same ancient participle. The shared ending and vowel pattern across these languages show that "holpen" is a sister of those words rather than a borrowing from one of them.

Synonyms: helped, aided, assisted

Antonyms: hindered, obstructed