What's the difference between handy and helpful?

Handy


Definition:

  • (superl.) Performed by the hand.
  • (superl.) Skillful in using the hand; dexterous; ready; adroit.
  • (superl.) Ready to the hand; near; also, suited to the use of the hand; convenient; valuable for reference or use; as, my tools are handy; a handy volume.
  • (superl.) Easily managed; obedient to the helm; -- said of a vessel.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Other than failing to get a goal, I couldn’t ask for anything more.” From Lambert’s perspective there was an element of misfortune about the first and third goals, with Willian benefitting from handy ricochets on both occasions.
  • (2) Compared with other instruments for the same purposes, the Gelomat has following advantages: Simple and handy use, good sensitivity and reproducibility, capability for simultaneous measurement of gel strength and gel elasticity.
  • (3) Giant spiders from Mars This is particularly handy later, when we encounter the mid-level boss, a giant spider-like vehicle known as a Fallen Walker.
  • (4) But playing with the filters means you can whittle the selection down by location and availability – handy, given there are several thousand dogs on offer in London alone.
  • (5) The new dry reagent strip method which takes only 1 min to carry out and requires only 20 microliters of blood seems to be handy and reliable.
  • (6) I liked working there in the "people department" (a new euphemism for the women's section in the age of feminism), since it offered handy distractions from the horror of the blank page.
  • (7) 7.25pm BST More via the nice, not to say obliging chaps @Ussoccer – in this case, a handy video preview of the game that is now, what, five minutes and some anthems away… 7.20pm BST Weather and warm-up update from US soccer… 7.16pm BST And Bosnia-Herzegovina: Begovic, Spahic, Bicakcic, Salihovic, Zukanovic, Lulic, Rahimic, Pjanic, Misimovic, Ibisevic, Dzeko.
  • (8) You can see by this handy income-distribution chart that over the past 44 years, middle-class incomes have barely budged .
  • (9) Merkel is known to be a keen mobile user and has been nicknamed "die Handy-Kanzlerin" ("Handy" being the German word for mobile phone).
  • (10) Negative side effects, both cardiac and extracardiac, were not observed: F appeared a handy and effective agent in post-AMI arrhythmias, especially when plasma drug levels are controlled; plasma F level monitoring is anyway recommended in pts with cardiac failure, owing to the wide interindividual variations.
  • (11) His guests have all left his property clean and tidy – and the money has come in handy.
  • (12) I wouldn’t put David Haye in just yet because he achieved more as a cruiserweight.” That’s a handy shopping list of varying talent and, apart from Wilder, the WBC champion with the imposing knockout record but yet to be truly stretched, it is not a field to invite trepidation.
  • (13) 1.15pm BST Digitimes: 'new iPads will impact expensive tablets' Got your pinch of salt handy?
  • (14) In my book, the Handi approach to innovation, although piecemeal and informal, is more likely to change the culture of the NHS than Sir David's stately institutions for innovation.
  • (15) When It went up late Wednesday, complete with handy links to fundraising pages.
  • (16) A handy way to distinguish a government announcement inspired more by politics than its actual policy outcome is when the prime minister’s office briefs (some) newspapers about it before it has been considered by the cabinet.
  • (17) Pint from £2.90 The Three-Legged Mare Three Legged Mare, York One of three York Brewery pubs (the others are the Last Drop at 27 Colliergate and the Yorkshire Terrier at 10 Stonegate), the Mare is particularly handy, as it's almost on York Minster's doorstep.
  • (18) Nielsen also said the masks came in handy when police deploy tear gas into a crowd, as they did at Ferguson.
  • (19) Of those, 80m are expected to be collected from stores or other handy locations such as lockers or post offices, according to Starkey.
  • (20) But anyway, it’s a handy guide for fathers-to-be whose attention might have drifted in antenatal classes: just do the opposite of whatever Robbie does, don’t hog the gas and air, and remember that it’s not all about you.

Helpful


Definition:

  • (a.) Furnishing help; giving aid; assistant; useful; salutary.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In a debate in the House of Commons, I will ask Britain, the US and other allies to convert generalised offers of help into more practical support with greater air cover, military surveillance and helicopter back-up, to hunt down the terrorists who abducted the girls.
  • (2) This frees the student to experience the excitement and challenge of learning and the joy of helping people.
  • (3) It comes in defiant journalism, like the story televised last week of a gardener in Aleppo who was killed by bombs while tending his roses and his son, who helped him, orphaned.
  • (4) It helped pay the bills and caused me to ponder on the disconnection between theory and reality.
  • (5) However, used effectively, credit can help you to make the most of your money - so long as you are careful!
  • (6) Confidence is the major prerequisite for a doctor to be able to help his seriously ill patient.
  • (7) It is entirely proper for serving judges to set out the arguments in high-profile cases to help public understanding of the legal issues, as long as it is done in an even-handed way.
  • (8) Prompt diagnosis, in which timely diagnostic laparoscopy and ultrasound evaluation of the pelvis may be helpful, provides the opportunity for prompt laparotomy with untwisting of the torsion and stabilization of the adnexa by suture and cystectomy, if possible, extirpation if not.
  • (9) Forty-five enteropathogenic (enteropathogenic Escherichia coli-like) strains isolated in commercial rabbit farms were subdivided into four biotypes with the help of six carbohydrate fermentation tests, ornithine decarboxylase tests, and motility tests.
  • (10) Couples in need of help will be "encouraged" to come to a private agreement.
  • (11) The results may help to explain the diversity in the multidrug-resistant phenotype.
  • (12) In the interim, sonographic studies during pregnancy in women at risk for AIDS may be helpful in identifying fetal intrauterine growth retardation and may help raise our level of suspicion for congenital AIDS.
  • (13) Cryopreserved autologous blood cells may thus restore some patients with CGL in transformation to chronic-phase disease and so may help to prolong life.
  • (14) Analysis of risk factors and use of criteria for categorizing severity of disease can be helpful in designing new treatments, identifying potential recipients of such agents, and evaluating outcome of therapy.
  • (15) The move comes as a poll found that 74% of people want doctors to be allowed to help terminally ill people end their lives.
  • (16) Unfortunately more than three quantitative data cannot be judged simultaneously without help of mathematical methods.
  • (17) "Attempts to quantify existential risk inevitably involve a large helping of subjective judgment.
  • (18) The young European idealist who helped Leon Brittan, the British EU commissioner, to negotiate Chinese entry to the World Trade Organisation, also found his Spanish lawyer wife in Brussels.
  • (19) Coup leader Captain Amadou Sanogo on Friday pleaded for foreign help to preserve the territorial integrity of the former French colony, a major gold and cotton producer.
  • (20) The organisation initially focused on education, funding the Indian company BYJU’s, which helps students learn maths and science, and the Nigerian company Andela, which trains African software developers.