good Samaritan a charitable or helpful person.

☞ In the Bible, Jesus tells the parable of a man who 'went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves' (Luke 10). The first two people who came across him lying stripped and wounded by the side of the road 'passed by on the other side'. It was the third man, a Samaritan (i.e. a man from Samaria), who took pity on him and helped him.