self-help

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

self-help

Wikipedia

Etymology

From self- +‎ help.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

self-help (uncountable)

1. The practice of bettering oneself without relying on the assistance of others.

   a self-help book

   • 1997, George Carlin, Brain Droppings‎, New York: Hyperion Books, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 91:

     Look at the self-help titles in the bookstore, and you'll get a few clues about our culture. They're all about aggression and acquisition. It wouldn't be at all surprising to see a book called How to Force your Will on Other People by Giving Them the Shaft and Fucking Them out of Their Money.

   • 2019 May 2, Nina Avramova, “When you should use self-help programs and when to skip them”, in CNN‎, archived from the original on 13 June 2025:

     Amanda Straw estimates that she has read nearly 200 self-help books.

2. (law) An act of redressing or preventing a wrong by one's own actions rather than through legal proceedings.

   self-help repossession

Synonyms

• (act of bettering oneself): self-improvement

Translations

bettering oneself without relying on the assistance of others

Catalan: autoajuda f Chinese: Mandarin: 勵志 / 励志 (zh) (lìzhì) Czech: svépomoc (cs) f Danish: selvhjælp c Dutch: zelfhulp (nl), zelfhelp (nl) Finnish: itseapu Galician: autoaxuda f German: Selbsthilfe (de) f Greek: αυτοβοήθεια (el) (aftovoḯtheia) Gujarati: સ્વસહાય (svashāya) Hungarian: önsegítés, önsegély (hu), önsegélyezés Irish: féinchabhair f, féinchúnamh m Italian: autoaiuto m Macedonian: самопомош f (samopomoš) Polish: samopomoc f Portuguese: auto-ajuda Russian: please add this translation if you can Serbo-Croatian: samopomoć Spanish: autoayuda (es) f

redressing or preventing a wrong by one's own actions

Chinese: Mandarin: 自助 (zh) (zìzhù), 自力救濟 / 自力救济 (zìlì jiùjì) Dutch: please add this translation if you can Finnish: oma apu Hungarian: (taking the law into one's own hands) (please verify) önbíráskodás (hu), (self-defense) (please verify) önvédelem (hu), (please verify) önsegély (hu), (please verify) önsegélyezés Japanese: 自力救済 (jiriki kyūsai) Korean: 자력구제(自力救濟) (jaryeokguje)