Help round to summit, as it were (2,2,5)
I believe the answer is:
so to speak
'as it were' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'help round to summit' is the wordplay.
'help' becomes 'SOS' (emergency abbreviation SOS).
'round' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'summit' becomes 'peak' (synonyms).
'sos' placed around 'to' is 'sotos'.
'sotos'+'peak'='SO TO SPEAK'
(Other definitions for so to speak that I've seen before include "In a way" , "If one may use that expression" , "as one might say" .)