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HELPLESS
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Unable to manage independently
Example:
as helpless as a baby
Classified under:
Similar:
dependent (relying on or requiring a person or thing for support, supply, or what is needed)
Derivation:
helplessness (a feeling of being unable to manage)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Unable to function; without help
Synonyms:
helpless; lost
Classified under:
Similar:
hopeless (without hope because there seems to be no possibility of comfort or success)
Derivation:
helplessness (a feeling of being unable to manage)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Lacking in or deprived of strength or power
Example:
helpless with laughter
Synonyms:
helpless; incapacitated
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
powerless (lacking power)
Derivation:
helplessness (powerlessness revealed by an inability to act)
Context examples:
Geriatric Depression Scale, Short Form (GDS-SF) Do you often feel helpless?
(GDS-SF - Often Feel Helpless, NCI Thesaurus)
And it is a great comfort to find that she is not a poor helpless creature, but can shift very well for herself.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
I began to feel pretty desperate at this, for I felt altogether helpless; and yet, by an odd train of circumstances, it was indeed through me that safety came.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
She who had not been able to remain in Louisa's room, or to look at her, without sufferings which made her worse than helpless!
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
And then suddenly, after a week of helpless suspense there came a flash of light.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Nay, we must carry on and play the part of the helpless merchant.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Me! a poor, helpless, forlorn widow, unfit for anything, my spirits quite broke down; what could I do with a girl at her time of life?
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
I have murdered the lovely and the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
The wretched Indians screamed with terror, but were helpless, run as they would, before the relentless purpose and horrible activity of these monstrous creatures.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
He is now helpless, indeed—blind and a cripple.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
