What was a “help meet” (Gen 2:18)?

A suitable helper. “Helper” (עֵ֖זֶר, ezer) means what it says, but the word rendered variously “meet,” “suitable,” “just right,” and “fit” (כְּנֶגְדּֽוֹ, kenegdow) is troublesome, because the root word simply means “in front of” or “opposite to.” And this is important, because it is the first description in the Bible of women, and also goes to the whole important issue of the relationship between men and women. Young’s Literal drops its literality and resorts to a paraphrase: “as his counterpart.” That strikes me as right. As one commentator says, all the other marshaled animals had male and female counterparts, but Adam did not.