helpline

noun

help·​line ˈhelp-ˌlīn 

 Southern often  ˈhep-,

 also  ˈheəp-

variants or less commonly help line

plural helplines also help lines

: a phone service providing help or assistance: such as

a

: a telephone service that is usually available to the public and that provides advice, support, resources, etc. for some specific purpose (such as crisis intervention)

a free/confidential/24-hour helpline

He's also a peer support specialist for DeQH, a helpline for South Asian LGBTQ people.

—Rose Brennan

Calls to state addiction help lines have risen, as have alcohol use, drug overdoses and relapse rates, experts have said.

—Steve Janoski

… helpline volunteers offer support and basic information, locate treatment options in your area, and can help you find answers to any questions you may have.

—Radhika Menon

b

: a customer service line to provide support (such as technical support) for a product, service, etc.

Before making your purchase, phone the software vendor's customer helpline to make sure customer representatives are knowledgeable.

—Eric Berg

A user's guide, software documentation, and telephone helpline are included.

—Carol Tenopir

All week, Mata and other staffers have spent hours calling help lines set up by drug plan providers, only to get constant busy signals.

—Nicole Foy

Examples of helpline in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The Motion Picture and Television Fund’s emergency helpline is 323-634-3888. —Jazz Tangcay, Variety, 10 Jan. 2025

Pasadena Humane also asked L.A. County residents who come across wildlife injured by the fires to contact the organization's wildlife helpline at 626.344.1129. —Kelli Bender, People.com, 9 Jan. 2025

Find other international suicide helplines at Befrienders Worldwide (befrienders.org). —Tomás Mier, Rolling Stone, 6 Jan. 2025

The two noted that their analysis was limited by exploring only the number of cases reported to the poison helpline—which likely does not represent the true scale of cocaine and methamphetamine exposure in cats and dogs—and not how exposures occurred. —Benedict Cosgrove, Newsweek, 20 Dec. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1965, in the meaning defined above