a native or inhabitant of ancient Samaria
somebody who selflessly gives aid to those in distress
(the Samaritans) Brit an organization that offers a telephone counselling service to people in despair
a person who is a member of the Samaritans, esp somebody who counsels people who phone for help or advice
Samaritan adj
Middle English via late Latin from Greek samaritēs inhabitant of Samaria, district and city of ancient Palestine; (sense 2) from the parable of the good Samaritan, Luke 10:30–7. The common modern use of Samaritan for a selfless helper misses some of the point of Christ's parable of the Samaritan who stopped to help a man robbed and wounded by the roadside. To Christ's Jewish audience, a Samaritan was an enemy and an outcast, as appears in the incident of Christ's visit to a Samaritan village: ‘the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans’ (John 4:9). The Samaritans had split from mainstream Judaism several centuries before Christ's birth; furthermore, the Jews despised them for being of mixed blood