at a loss

• “This is doubtful, and even Brown's most admiring biographers are at a loss when confronted with Pottawatomie; one suggests that he was in a trance, another refers to the murders as "executions", but none can offer an acceptable explanation, let alone a defence.”

  Flashman and the angel of the lord

• “An appeal is taken: he is arraigned before Jupiter in a synod of the gods for having rendered a partial and unjust sentence; but defends himself so well, that their godships are at a loss what to do.”

  Shakespeare His Life Art And Characters

• “Bill Roscoe spoke briskly, obviously at a loss to understand the tough Marine Major's remark.”

  Behold the Stars

• “I told him yes, and now being come a little better to myself, I found him to be Tom W.llson, Sir W. Batten's clerk, and fearing he might be in some melancholy fit, I was at a loss what to do or say.”

  The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Jul/Aug 1663

• “Operating at a loss is one way NASA keeps its grip on space, the SFF lawyers accused.”

  Deception Point

• “Used to commanding ranks of obedient soldiers, Eptpulvv found himself at a loss for words.”

  Running from the Deity

• “Aunt Nabby, fat and easy as usual; for since the sink is mended, and no longer leaks and rots the beam, and she has nothing to do but watch it, and Uncle Bill has joined the Washingtonians and no longer drinks rum, she is quite at a loss for topics of worriment.”

  The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe

• “Recently the SFF had published an explosive rant charging that NASA was in fact an "illegal monopoly" whose ability to operate at a loss and still stay in business represented unfair competition to private firms.”

  Deception Point

• “To have been one of the five hundred was nothing; but to be one of the sixteen was a great deal, — was indeed so much that Phineas, not understanding as yet the advantage of his own comeliness, was at a loss to conceive why so pleasant an honour was conferred upon him.”

  Phineas Finn

• “The most trusted of my counselors is a man of extraordinary competency never at a loss in any situation.”

  Simon & Schuster: Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer

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