Good Samaritan

n.
A compassionate person who unselfishly helps others.

[After the Samaritan passerby in the New Testament parable who was the only person to aid a man who had been beaten and robbed (Luke 10:30-37).]

(good suh-MAR-i-tn)

noun
A person who voluntarily helps others in distress. Also Samaritan.

Etymology
From the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke (a book of the Bible) where a Samaritan stopped to help a man who had been injured and robbed, while others passed by; Samaritan from Late Latin Samaritanus (a resident of Samaria), ultimately from Greek Samareia, Samaria.

Usage
"A man with a gun was chasing three people through an alley in San Diego the other day when an onlooker jumped on his back. Cut! The onlooker didn't realize he had interrupted the shooting of a scene from a movie based on the old TV series `Hunter.' A city film commission rep told columnist Diane Bell of the San Diego Union-Tribune that neither the good Samaritan nor the actor was injured." — Steve Harvey, Well-intentioned Samaritan Halts Shooting by Tackling a Gun-toting Actor, The Los Angeles Times, Aug 20, 2002.

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A compassionate person who unselfishly helps others, as in In this neighborhood you can't count on a good Samaritan if you get in trouble. This expression alludes to Jesus's parable about a Samaritan who rescues and cares for a stranger who had been robbed and badly hurt and had been ignored by a priest and a Levite (Luke 10:30-35). The Samaritans were considered a heretical group by other Jews, so by using a Samaritan for the parable, Jesus chose a person whom his listeners would find least likely to be worthy of concern. [c. 1600]

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One who renders voluntary aid without compensation to a person who is injured or in danger. There is no requirement to intervene; however, if one chooses to be a Good Samaritan then one may face liability if reasonable care is not exercised and the rescued party is further injured. Prosser & Keaton, Torts ch. 9, §56, 375, 378 (5th ed. 1984). Various state statutes may provide limited levels of immunity from lawsuits for the rescuer.

(suh-mar-uh-tuhn)

In one of the parables of Jesus, the only one of several passersby to come to the aid of a Jew who had been robbed, beaten, and left to die on the roadside. The kindness of the Samaritan was particularly admirable because Jews and Samaritans (i.e., people of Samaria) were generally enemies. Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan to answer a man who had asked him, “Who is my neighbor?” He forced his questioner to admit that the Samaritan was the true neighbor of the man who had been robbed.

Figuratively, “Good Samaritans” are persons who go out of their way to perform acts of kindness to others, especially strangers.