Good Samaritan

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

A person who helps others in need without expecting reward

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Người giúp đỡ người khác khi cần mà không mong đợi phần thưởng

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: a resident of Samaria
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

Moderator if the Board wanted a patron saint, my sole nominee would certainly be the good Samaritan cos he got it right.
AN OFF - DUTY police inspector saw the alleged killer of Marie Wilks but dismissed him as a good Samaritan, the M50 murder trial was told yesterday.

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “Good Samaritan” mean?

A person who helps others in need without expecting reward Literally: a resident of Samaria

Is “Good Samaritan” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.