From OE 'helpan' — once a strong verb with past tense 'holp,' now regularized but unchanged in meaning since earliest Germanic.
To make it easier or possible for someone to do something; to give assistance or aid.
From Old English helpan (to help, to support, to succour, to benefit), from Proto-Germanic *helpanan (to help), possibly from PIE *kelb- or *kelp- (to help, though wider Indo-European connections outside Germanic are disputed). Old English helpan was a strong verb of the third class — its principal parts were help / healp / hulpon / holpen — and the archaic past participle holpen survived into Early Modern English, particularly in biblical style (the Lord hath holpen his servant Israel). The weak past tense helped displaced holp and holpen through the 16th and 17th