helpful

UK/ˈhɛlp.fl̩/US/ˈhɛlp.fl̩/

adjectiveA2Very common — you will meet it every day · #2,185 of 15,258leans spoken

Helpful means ready and useful in giving help. The person who notices you are struggling and does something about it.

It describes people and things equally, so a helpful colleague and a helpful diagram are both doing the same job. The word is warm and very common in British politeness, and its ironic use is common too, since that's helpful said flatly means the opposite. Its negative, unhelpful, is one of the mildest-sounding and sharpest criticisms in office English. The noun is help, and helpfulness is rare by comparison.

Definitions of helpful

1adjectivehelpfulGiving or ready to give useful assistance.A2
“The woman at the desk was extremely helpful.”

Where it comes from

Middle English
helpful
English, today
helpful

From Middle English helpful; equivalent to help + ful.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Everyday Adjectives, A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 13 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

helpful in the wild

Studying how the weather works on other planets has been helpful in understanding how weather works on Earth.
Weather
Simple English Wikipedia's basic presentation style makes it helpful for beginners learning English.
Simple English Wikipedia
The concept of hull speed is not used in modern naval architecture, where considerations of speed/length ratio or Froude number are considered more helpful.
Hull speed
Swarajati is a form in Carnatic music, which is helpful before learning a varnam.
Swarajati
Duke Law School's law library's research guide notes how it is helpful for PACER.
Justia

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

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