5 results for: helping

1. To give assistance to; aid: I helped her find the book. He helped me into my coat.
2. To contribute to the furtherance of; promote.
3. To give relief to: help the needy.
4. To ease; relieve: medication to help your cold.
5. To change for the better; improve: A fresh coat of paint will help a scarred old table.
6. To refrain from; avoid or resist. Used with can or cannot: couldn't help laughing.
7. To wait on, as in a store or restaurant.

1. 1. The act or an instance of helping.
   2. Aid or assistance.
2. Relief; remedy.
3. One that helps: You've been a great help. A food processor is a help to the serious cook.
4. A person employed to help, especially a farm worker or domestic servant.
   Such employees considered as a group. Often used with the.

Synonyms: These verbs mean to contribute to the fulfillment of a need, the furtherance of an effort, or the achievement of a purpose or end. Help and aid, the most general, are frequently interchangeable: a medication that helps (or aids) the digestion.
Help, however, sometimes conveys a stronger suggestion of effectual action: I'll help you move the piano.
Assist usually implies making a secondary contribution or acting as a subordinate: Apprentices assisted the chef in preparing the banquet.
Succor refers to going to the relief of one in want, difficulty, or distress: "Mr. Harding thought . . . of the worn-out, aged men he had succored" (Anthony Trollope). See Also Synonyms at improve.

Usage Note: Many people commonly use help in the sense conveyed in the sentence Don't change it any more than you can help (that is, "any more than you have to"). Some grammarians condemn this usage on the grounds that help in this sense means "avoid" and therefore logically requires a negative. But the expression is a well-established idiom. See Usage Note at cannot.