| Library / English Dictionary |
HELPFUL
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Providing assistance or serving a useful function
Classified under:
Similar:
steadying (causing to become steady)
stabilising; stabilizing (causing to become stable)
accommodating (obliging; willing to do favors)
adjuvant (enhancing the action of a medical treatment)
assistive (giving assistance)
face-saving (maintaining dignity or prestige)
facilitative (freeing from difficulty or impediment)
facilitatory (inducing or aiding in facilitating neural activity)
implemental; instrumental; subservient (serving or acting as a means or aid)
laborsaving; laboursaving (designed to replace or conserve human and especially manual labor)
ministrant (giving practical help to)
reformative; reformatory (tending to reform)
right-hand (most helpful and reliable)
Also:
useful; utile (being of use or service)
encouraging (giving courage or confidence or hope)
cooperative (done with or working with others for a common purpose or benefit)
accommodating; accommodative (helpful in bringing about a harmonious adaptation)
Antonym:
unhelpful (providing no assistance)
Derivation:
helpfulness (the property of providing useful assistance)
Context examples:
"If you're eating really badly then probiotics might be helpful. But if you're already eating healthily, they may not be that beneficial," says Professor Margaret Morris, Head of Pharmacology at UNSW.
(Probiotics May Not Always Be A Silver Bullet for Better Health, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
Having copies of medical records and death certificates is also helpful.
(Family History, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
For people exercising in the heat and losing a lot of minerals in sweat, sports drinks can be helpful.
(Dehydration, NIH)
Some mental health professionals find this very helpful in defining effective methods for treating chronic pain and pain syndromes.
(Interpretive Therapy, NCI Thesaurus)
Grief counseling or grief therapy is also helpful to some people.
(Bereavement, NIH: National Cancer Institute)
This enables the examiner to differentiate between normal and abnormal flow patterns and, in some cases, to quantitate those characteristics that are helpful in determining the severity of abnormal flow states.
(Doppler Echocardiography, NCI Thesaurus)
Acidification of the colon contents attracts ammonia from the bloodstream, assisting stool excretion; helpful in liver failure when ammonia cannot be detoxified.
(Lactulose, NCI Thesaurus)
An algorithm akin to the annoyingly helpful one that attempts to auto-complete text messages and emails is now being harnessed for a better cause.
(Microbes are at work in our bodies, and researchers have figured out what they're up to, National Science Foundation)
“As Em'ly's eyes—which was heavy—see this woman better,” Mr. Peggotty went on, “she know'd as she was one of them as she had often talked to on the beach. Fur, though she had run (as I have said) ever so fur in the night, she had oftentimes wandered long ways, partly afoot, partly in boats and carriages, and know'd all that country, 'long the coast, miles and miles. She hadn't no children of her own, this woman, being a young wife; but she was a-looking to have one afore long. And may my prayers go up to Heaven that “twill be a happiness to her, and a comfort, and a honour, all her life! May it love her and be dootiful to her, in her old age; helpful of her at the last; a Angel to her heer, and heerafter!”
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Many are helpful.
(Bacterial Infections, NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)
