helped

verb

past tense of help
1
as in aided
to provide (someone) with what is useful or necessary to achieve an end offered to help her widowed father when he moved into an apartment

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in relieved
to make more bearable or less severe the new ointment didn't help Josh's sunburn one bit

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
3
as in prevented
to keep from happening by taking action in advance they couldn't help the way things turned out

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4
as in benefited
to provide with something useful or desirable being independently wealthy certainly helped him during his years as a struggling young artist

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
5
as in improved
to make better some minor revisions would help this essay immensely

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of helped In 2020, Parton donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University, which helped fund coronavirus research and Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine. — Charisma Madarang, Rolling Stone, 26 Aug. 2026 From classic Amtrak routes crossing the Continental Divide to historic steam locomotives chugging through the state’s mining past, these journeys continue to preserve the stories, scenery and communities that helped shape the West. — Jocelyn Rowley, Denver Post, 25 Aug. 2026 Two centuries later, Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch helped establish germ theory, which holds that many diseases are caused by infectious agents that multiply in the body. — Jason Liebowitz, New Yorker, 25 Aug. 2026 The cost of doing that is in the millions, and the rising cost of diesel has not helped over the course of the past year. — Chilekasi Adele, CBS News, 25 Aug. 2026 The Sunrise on the Reaping cast also open up about their approach to servicing fans — and a few ways that the fanbase helped them too. — Shania Russell, Entertainment Weekly, 25 Aug. 2026 The Amazing Spider-Man and Social Network actor got candid about portraying the controversial executive who has helped spearhead the AI revolution. — James Hibberd, HollywoodReporter, 25 Aug. 2026 The moment helped popularize the style, and the name was later applied to the necklace’s continuous line of diamonds. — Pooja Mistry, Forbes.com, 19 Aug. 2026 Beijing has helped prevent oil prices from spiking to $150 a barrel by slashing its oil imports beyond what many thought possible. — Matt Egan, CNN Money, 19 Aug. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for helped
  1. aided
  2. relieved
  3. prevented
  4. benefited
  5. improved
  6. assisted
  7. alleviated
  8. averted
Verb
  • Ukraine launched deadly strikes in recent months on the facilities of Russia’s biggest online retailer, Wildberries, saying the company sells dual-use goods that have aided the Kremlin’s war effort.
    — Samya Kullab, Los Angeles Times, 30 Aug. 2026
  • What followed was eight days of evacuation by the Royal Navy aided by a fleet of small private boats that crossed the English Channel to aid in getting the men off the beaches.
    — David Szondy August 30, New Atlas, 30 Aug. 2026
Definition of aided
Verb
  • The Lincoln was relieved by the USS George Washington last week, and it is expected to make a port call in Thailand in the coming days, according to several news reports.
    — Brad Lendon, CNN Money, 27 Aug. 2026
  • The different kinds of Roman toilet At home, the poorest Romans relieved themselves in chamber pots.
    — Andrew Coletti, Popular Science, 27 Aug. 2026
Definition of relieved
Verb
  • Reuters published an interview with Sinan Can Demir, a Texas computer science student who in late July prevented a rogue version of Anthropic’s Mythos model from uploading malicious code to an open-source software project on Github.
    — Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 25 Aug. 2026
  • ProPublica went further, enlisting the help of experts to determine which of those deaths could have been prevented.
    — Audrey Dutton, ProPublica, 25 Aug. 2026
Definition of prevented
Verb
  • Payne was always the player who could’ve benefited the most from the arrival of Sammis, and the early returns on the pairing were encouraging.
    — Steven Johnson, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 29 Aug. 2026
  • On Tuesday local time, the US semiconductor sector faced a sharp sell-off, with chip and memory stocks that had previously benefited heavily from the AI surge leading the declines and pulling the broader market down.
    — , CNBC, 28 Aug. 2026
Definition of benefited
Verb
  • Beijing’s endorsement of DeepSeek and Liang has also helped open doors and improved their access to marquee listings.
    — Anniek Bao,Elaine Yu, CNBC, 28 Aug. 2026
  • Robinson’s ability to set the edge in the run game seems much improved.
    — Barry Jackson, Miami Herald, 27 Aug. 2026
Definition of improved
Verb
  • Guard soldiers logged more than 4,000 patrols and assisted in 171 arrests, as violent crime in New Orleans continued a multiyear decline that echoes broader national trends.
    — Jack Brook, Los Angeles Times, 25 Aug. 2026
  • Palmer only scored and assisted in the same league match once in 2025-26 (against Leeds United in February), while he and Rogers were involved in eight of Chelsea’s 18 shots at Craven Cottage.
    — Liam Tharme, New York Times, 25 Aug. 2026
Definition of assisted
Verb
  • However, Paramount’s recent decision to put those commitments in writing has alleviated Cinemark and others’ concerns.
    — Brent Lang, IndieWire, 18 Aug. 2026
  • Effective deployment of oil in storage alleviated the strain, too.
    — Jason Bordoff, Foreign Affairs, 14 Aug. 2026
Definition of alleviated
Verb
  • They would have been averted if the two sides reached a trade deal, but Canada's negotiators left Washington empty-handed on Friday evening.
    — Kevin Breuninger,Michael Wayland, CNBC, 24 Aug. 2026
  • However, when the camera reached Omri Shiff, a hurdler from Israel, both anchors inexplicably averted their attention to another participant who was apparently taking too long to get set.
    — Austin Perry OutKick, FOXNews.com, 14 Aug. 2026
Definition of averted

Browse Nearby Words

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helped
helper
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Cite this Entry

“Helped.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/helped. Accessed 2 Sep. 2026.

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