help

help vb 1 Help, aid, assist and their corresponding nouns help, aid, assistance are often used with little distinction as meaning (for the verbs) to furnish another person or thing with what is needed (as for the accomplishment of work or the attainment of an end) or (for the nouns) the support so furnished. All usually imply cooperation or a combination of effort.

Help, however, carries a stronger implication of advance toward the end or objective than do the others

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every little bit helps

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you are hindering rather than helping

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a drug that helps one to sleep

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please help me over the fence

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Aid strongly suggests the need of help or relief and therefore sometimes imputes weakness to the one aided and strength to the one aiding

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but this she knows . . . that saints will aid if men will call— Coleridge

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cannonballs may aid the truth but thought's a weapon stronger; we'll win our battles by its aid— Mackay

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his undergraduate work . . . was aided by tuition grants— Current Biog.

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Assist, which seldom loses its original implication of standing by, distinctively suggests a secondary role in the assistant or a subordinate character in the assistance; thus, a deputy assists rather than aids his superior; a good light assists the eyes in reading

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every additional proof that the world is a closely interwoven system . . . assists religious belief— Inge

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moves through the streets at a clip that suggests they have been called to assist at a rather serious ñre—Panter-Downes

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Analogous words: . *support, uphold, back, champion: *benefit, profit, avail: forward, further, promote, *advance

Antonyms: hinder

Contrasted words: impede, obstruct, block, bar (see HINDER): *frustrate, thwart, foil, baffle, balk: *embarrass, discomfit: harm, hurt, *injure

2 *improve, better, ameliorate

Analogous words: *palliate, gloss, extenuate, whitewash, whiten: alleviate, *relieve, mitigate

help n aid, assistance (see under HELP vb 1)

Analogous words: cooperation, uniting or union (see corresponding verbs at UNITE): supporting or support, backing (see SUPPORT vb)