Helper

//ˈhɛlpɚ// name, noun, slang

name, noun, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    One who helps; an aide; assistant; auxiliary.
  2. 2
    a person who helps people or institutions (especially with financial help) wordnet
  3. 3
    That which helps; anything serving to assist.

    "While Adobe's Acrobat Reader, Macromedia's Flash player, and other common plug-ins suggest themselves the moment you encounter a site that requires them, other browser helpers are harder to find."

  4. 4
    a person who contributes to the fulfillment of a need or furtherance of an effort or purpose wordnet
  5. 5
    A person who does cleaning and cooking in a family home, or in a market; domestic employee. Hong-Kong, Philippines, Singapore
Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    A locomotive that assists a train, usually on steep gradients. US

    "A device for the automatic control of crewless helper locomotives cut into the make-up of heavy freight trains has been perfected by the Louisville & Nashville RR in conjunction with the General Railway Signalling Co."

  2. 7
    A stimulating pill, especially amphetamine. slang

    "And I routinely took more “helpers” when I woke up in order to maintain the fast pace and, more importantly, to study for my final exams."

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A city in Carbon County, Utah, United States, which got its name from the practice of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad of attaching helper engines to trains there.
  2. 2
    A surname; variant of Halpern or Helfer.

Synonyms

All synonyms
assistantbenefactorabettoraccessoryacolyteadjutant

Example

More examples

"For four years, he cut the grass at the original price, but I noticed that toward the end of that year, he had a helper with him quite often."

Etymology

From Middle English helpere, from Old English *helpere, from Proto-West Germanic *helpārī (“helper”), equivalent to help + -er. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Hälper (“helper”), West Frisian helper (“helper”), Dutch helper (“helper”), German Low German Helper (“helper”), German Helfer (“helper”), Danish hjælper (“helper”), Swedish hjälpare (“helper”), Icelandic hjálpar (“helper”).

Related phrases

T helper celldomestic helperhelper T cellhelper doghelper gradehelper verbhelper virushelper-upmother's little helperoath-helperplumber's helperself-helper

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.