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View synonyms for helpless

helpless

[ help-lis ]

adjective

  1. unable to help oneself; weak or dependent:

    a helpless invalid.

  2. deprived of strength or power; powerless; incapacitated:

    They were helpless with laughter.

  3. affording no help.


helpless

/ ˈhɛlplɪs /

adjective

  1. unable to manage independently
  2. made powerless or weak

    they were helpless from so much giggling

  3. without help
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Derived Forms

  • ˈhelplessly, adverb
  • ˈhelplessness, noun
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Other Words From

  • helpless·ly adverb
  • helpless·ness noun
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Word History and Origins

Origin of helpless1

First recorded in 1125–75; Middle English; help + -less
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Example Sentences

As the pandemic and the rising casualty count dominated the news, people trying to avoid the virus have remained isolated at home, feeling helpless.

Leaf-cutting worker ants might look like they’d be helpless against an enemy soldier ant many times their size.

We didn’t realize it was a long journey until we realized how helpless we were.

To respect their wishes, I sat in the parched grass and waited, feeling helpless.

Looking at that newspaper in the middle of the American desert, I wondered whether it was now my turn to know familial loss and feel helpless.

“It's insane to see what the extreme version of that type of helpless anger combined with mental illness can create,” Cook wrote.

“No, the church has to be on the side of the most disadvantaged, of the poorest, of the helpless,” the padre tells us.

He saves the helpless from burning buildings and puppies from untimely deaths.

I feel helpless at moments because I do not know how to help the people who lost their families and friends.

At the stage when you are a helpless baby, Mom is, literally, everything.

The fingers of all the clocks in the house were revolving with the most extraordinary rapidity--she was helpless.

She was helpless, because she had said nothing all day of her appointment, and because Janet had not mentioned it either.

The keen resentment had faded from his face, but an immense reproach was there—a heavy, helpless, appealing reproach.

"Perhaps I can write to you," Hugh tried to console her, feeling horribly guilty and helpless.

But Bocardon, who had to account to higher powers, the proprietors of the hotel, was helpless.

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helping verbhelpline