succor

Noun

succour (countable and uncountable, plural succours)

1. (uncountable) Aid, assistance, or relief given to one in distress; ministration.
   • Now ſtands the Brere like a Lord alone, / Puffed up with pryde and vaine pleaſaunce: / But all this glee had no continuaunce. / For eftſoones Winter gan to approche, / The bluſtring Boreas did encroche, / And beate upon the ſolitarie Brere: / For nowe no ſuccour was ſeene him neere.1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “Februarie. Aegloga Se[c]unda.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Iohn Wolfe for Iohn Harrison the yonger, […], →OCLC, folio 6, verso
2. (uncountable) Aid or assistance in the form of military equipment and soldiers, especially reinforcements sent to support military action.
   • Then Diocleſian, / Calling aloud for Succour to the Guard, / Soon gave 'em the Alarm, and made 'em fly / With all the Wings of Speed, to reſcue 'em; [...]1690, indicated as Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher [actually John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, and revised by Thomas Betterton], The Prophetess: Or, The History of Dioclesian. … With Alterations...
3. (uncountable, obsolete except dialectal) Protection, refuge, shelter; (countable) a place providing such protection, refuge or shelter.
   • The gilleflower also, the skilful doe knowe, / doe looke to be couered, in frost and in snowe. / The knot, and the border, and rosemarie gaie, / do craue the like succour for dieng awaie.1878, Thomas Tusser, “Decembers Husbandrie”, in Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie. […], London: Published for the English Dialect Society by Trübner & Co., […], →OCLC; republished as W[illiam]...

See all 6 meanings of succour