Meaning & use
help out
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Meanings
verbphrasal verb
To give someone useful assistance, especially by doing part of a job or solving a temporary problem for them.
Grammar: Takes an object that can sit before or after out: help your sister out, help out your sister.
Patterns
- help someone out
- help someone out with something
- help out someone
Could you help me out with these boxes before the movers arrive?
My neighbor helped us out when our car broke down.
They helped him out by lending him some money until payday.
verbphrasal verb
To lend a hand with general tasks, usually without being asked and without being paid.
Grammar: No object; often followed by at, in or with: help out at the school.
Patterns
- help out
- help out at somewhere
- help out with something
Many parents help out at the school fair every summer.
I sometimes help out in my uncle's shop on Saturdays.
If everyone helps out, the cleanup will be finished in an hour.
Word forms
| third person singular | helps out |
|---|---|
| past tense | helped out |
| past participle | helped out |
| -ing form | helping out |
Common combinations
- help out a friend
- She stayed late to help out a friend who was moving.
- happy to help out
- I'm happy to help out if you need someone to watch the kids.
- help out around the house
- Teenagers should help out around the house.
- help out with the cost
- My parents helped out with the cost of the wedding.
- help out in an emergency
- Volunteers helped out in the emergency by delivering food.
Synonyms and how they differ
- assist
- Assist is more formal and fits workplaces or official settings, while help out sounds friendly and informal.
- pitch in
- Pitch in stresses joining a group effort, whereas help out can describe one person helping another.
- lend a hand
- Lend a hand is an idiom with the same warmth but it does not suggest rescuing someone from a problem as strongly as help out does.
- bail out
- Bail out means rescuing someone from serious trouble, usually money trouble, so it is stronger than help out.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: help out or help?
help out vs help
Plain help can take a direct object without a particle (help me), while help out adds the idea of relieving a particular problem or sharing a workload.
Practice
Our team is short of staff this week, so could you ____ on Friday?
Choose one answer.
Help out is the phrasal verb meaning to lend a hand, and after could it needs the base form. The other options have the wrong word order or the wrong form.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “help out”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.