英和和英

間投詞

God help someone

1. (second or third person) Expressing pity, commiseration, or benediction (in a literally or figuratively religious way).

   Synonyms: heaven help someone, God love someone

   God help him, he's just trying to stay afloat.

   Well, you certainly tried your best, God help you.

   • 1848, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Mary Barton:

     God help yon poor pale girl, who droops forlorn, / And meekly her affliction doth endure; / God help her, outcast lamb; she trembling stands, / All wan her lips, and frozen red her hands; […]

   • 1995, Nick Hornby, High Fidelity, London: Victor Gollancz, →ISBN, page 143:

     ‘ […] But we want to be a bit more experimental than that. We want to retain our pop sensibilities, but kind of stretch them a bit.’
     God help us.
     ‘Sounds great.’

2. (second or third person) Expressing a threat or a warning to the person who violates some rule or condition. (The implication is that something so bad will happen, such as the speaker punishing the other person or a disaster ensuing, that the other person will need God's protection from that wrath or calamity.)

   Synonym: heaven help someone

   God help you;   God help them

   God help you if you break my equipment because you were acting like a bull in a china shop. [ = I'll beat your ass if you do that.]

   God help you if you set sail in this weather. [ = You'll be lucky to survive if you do that.]

   • 2011, Simon Perry, All Who Came Before, page 60:

     “God help anyone who touches wine destined for Amram's lips!” Eliazar laughed as he lifted the skins on the cart to reach for a piece of bread to chew as he walked.

3. (first person) An expression of astonishment, dismay, bemusement, or a jocular hint of any of those.

   Synonym: heaven help someone

   Near-synonyms: lawdamercy; Jesus Christ; Jesus, Mary and Joseph; Lord love a duck

   God help me;   God help us

   God help us! They're actually going to run an AI arms race without bothering to agree a framework for AI safety first.

   They might just have the tiger by the tail, God help us.

   I'm going to have a go, God help me. Wish me luck.