Help in Morse Code: .... . .-.. .--.

Help in Morse code is .... . .-.. .--. (H-E-L-P). The letters are sent one after another with a short gap between each. That is the answer for a text, a puzzle, a bracelet or a class exercise, and the Copy button above gives you the exact string. The one thing it is not is a distress call: rescue services listen for SOS, which has its own page, while spelled-out HELP reads as an ordinary word.

Said aloud, HELP is di-di-di-dit, dit, di-dah-di-dit, di-dah-dah-dit. Operators voice a dot as "dit" (shortened to "di" inside a letter) and a dash as "dah", and saying the word this way while you tap it keeps the rhythm honest. The letter tiles above play each sound on its own.

Watch the last letter. Several pages online print P as .-., which is R, so a copied "HELR" is a real risk; the code on this page comes from the same ITU-R M.1677-1 table that runs every tool on this site.

HELP ME in Morse code is .... . .-.. .--. / -- ., where the slash marks the seven-unit word gap and ME adds two letters. Longer requests are built the same way, one word at a time, so the table gives each code with its length at this page's 14 WPM player speed and at 20 WPM.

Every extra word costs time and gives the listener more gaps to lose. SOS, nine signals in about two seconds at the same speed, is shorter than HELP on its own, and that brevity is part of what makes it easy to send and to recognize.

No. HELP is a word spelled with letter gaps, while SOS is a procedural signal, ...---..., sent as one unbroken run with no gaps between its three groups. A listener trained on distress traffic reacts to that nine-signal rhythm, not to a spelled word.

SOS became the worldwide distress signal under the International Radiotelegraph Convention signed in Berlin on 3 November 1906, in force from 1 July 1908; Germany had already adopted it nationally in April 1905. It was never short for anything: "save our souls" and "save our ship" were attached afterwards. Marconi stations had used CQD since 1904, and the Titanic's operators sent both signals in April 1912.

On voice radio, the 1927 convention adopted "Mayday", from the French m'aider, "help me", so the spoken distress call really does mean help. Morse SOS remained the maritime radio distress signal until the GMDSS replaced it in 1999, and it is still recognized visually as three short, three long and three short flashes. How it sounds by ear, the standard flash timing and how to send it with a torch or whistle are on the SOS Morse code sound page.

The method is the same whatever carries the signal: a short tap, blink or flash is a dot, one held for roughly three dots is a dash, and the pauses do the spelling. Tapping travels through walls and pipes, blinking works when you cannot move or make a sound, and a flashlight or phone torch carries furthest at night.

If a game, a note or a photo shows .... . .-.. .--., it reads HELP: match each group to a letter using the table above, four dots for H, a single one for E, then L and P. Run together with no spaces, those 13 marks have many possible readings, so keep a space between letters and a slash between words when you paste it into the decoder.

One older variant trips people up. In American Morse, the landline code once used on US telegraph lines, HELP was .... . ⸺ ....., with a long dash for L and five dots for P; any HELP you meet today uses the international table above. To wear or hang the word instead, the Make it yours box turns it into a card, bracelet or tattoo image without a watermark.