helan

Forms

helan (strong class 4; third-person singular present hileþ, past singular hæl, past plural hǣlon)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *helan, from Proto-Germanic *helaną (“to hide, conceal”).^[1] The strong verb is found across West Germanic: Old Frisian hela, Old Saxon helan and Old High German helan (whence German hehlen).^[2][3][4] Its full ablaut series is kept in Old English, Old Saxon and Old High German.^[5]

Outside Germanic it is matched by Latin cēlō (“to hide, conceal”) and Old Irish celid (“conceals”), and Holthausen adds occulō (“to cover over, hide”);^[2][4][6][1] Köbler and Wiktionary trace the group to Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- (“to cover, hide”).^[2][4][6][1] Holthausen counts heall, hell, helm and hyllan among the Old English words of the same root.^[4]

In Old English it belongs to the fourth class of strong verbs, beside beran and stelan.^[7] The present has ⟨i⟩ in the second and third person singular.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is first recorded in the Pastoral Care in Hatton 20, a manuscript written between 890 and 897: the proud are to be warned that, if they love their neighbours as themselves, hie him ne helen forhwy hi hie tælen on hiera geðohte “they should not hide from them why they blame them in their thoughts”.^[9][10] The same text has swá hwá swá hilþ his gódan weorc for the Latin “si bona quæ agit occultat”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Bosworth and Toller give one sense, to conceal, hide or cover, and Toller's Supplement divides it into keeping something from becoming known and keeping silent about it.^[8][11] The person from whom something is hidden stands in the dative, or after wiþ or fram;^[11][12] Sweet notes the accusative of the thing and the dative of the person.^[11][12] In the glosses it renders Latin “celare”.^[6] The verb is used in prose (the Pastoral Care, the Orosius, the Boethius, the laws) and in verse (Andreas, Elene, Christ, Genesis).^[8][10]

It lived on as Middle English helen “to cover”, which the MED traces to it and to the weak verb helian; there it is used of covering a thing, clothing a person and roofing a building.^[13] Bosworth and Toller note Chaucer's hele and the Surrey dialect's hele “to cover”.^[8]

Timeline

• 890×897 – ðæt hie him ne helen in the Pastoral Care (Hatton 20).^[9][10]
• s. x med. – the Old English Boethius (Cotton Otho A. vi).^[14][10]
• s. x² – Andreas in the Vercelli Book and Christ in the Exeter Book.^[15][16][10]
• s. xi in. – Ælfric's Lives of Saints (Cotton Julius E. vii).^[17][10]

Meanings

Verb

1. to conceal, hide, cover.^[8][6][12]
2. to keep something from becoming known, with the dative of the person or wiþ, fram “from”.^[11]
3. to keep silence about something.^[11]

Word family

• forhelan
• ġehelan
• behelan

Descendants

• Middle English helen (→ English hele; English heel; Scots heil)^[1]

Related words

• heall
• hell
• helm
• heolstor
• hyllan
• helian
• hulu

Usage notes

The page also holds a rare verb hēlan (also hœ̄lan) “to calumniate, slander”, a West Saxon word that Wiktionary derives from Proto-West Germanic *hōlijan and connects with hōlian.^[1] Toller's Supplement and Sweet list it with a reference to that verb.^[11][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 168
3. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
4. ^ a b c d Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 154
5. ^ Seebold, Elmar (1970), Vergleichendes und etymologisches Wörterbuch der germanischen starken Verben, The Hague / Paris: Mouton, p. 252
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. helan
7. ^ Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 6.60
8. ^ a b c d e f Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 525
9. ^ a b Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 499
10. ^ a b c d e f Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
11. ^ a b c d e f Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 529
12. ^ a b c d Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 108
13. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
14. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 296
15. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 704
16. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 223
17. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 282