helpless

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One of the best ways we can do this for the harassed and the helpless is ask them if we may pray with and for them in their problems, even before they make any confession of faith in Christ.

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Definitions (11)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. adjective Unable to help oneself; powerless or incompetent.
  2. adjective Lacking support or protection: They were left helpless in the storm.
  3. adjective Impossible to control; involuntary: helpless laughter.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (4)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • He was removed to what they call the helpless ward, where he was well nursed and attended. —  Poor Jack
  • I don't know how you got round me I wonder I guess it was because you was kind of helpless, and I didn't know what you'd do without me I guess it was love, and you couldn't help yourself." —  The Land of Promise
  • Of your bunglers--helpless, inefficient persons, "unfit alike for good or ill," who try one thing, and fail because they are not strong enough, and another, because they have not energy enough, and a third, because they have no talent--inconsistent, unstable, and therefore never to excel, what shall we say of them? —  Froude's Essays in Literature and History With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc
  • They look so little and--helpless, and as if they were made to hold in one's arms. —  Emily Fox-Seton Being "The Making of a Marchioness" and "The Methods of Lady Walderhurst"
  • Enough that he was soon accepted as one of the party; that the children, with that quick intelligence which Providence gives the helpless, recognized a friend, and played with his blond beard and long silken mustache, and took other liberties--as the helpless are apt to do. —  Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2
 

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

weak ·  hopeless ·  miserable ·  sick ·  desperate ·  innocent ·  dumb ·  naked ·  nervous ·  lonely
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (1)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Middle English helples (= Old Saxon hulpilōs = OFries. helpelōs = Dutch hulpeloos = Old High German helfelōs, Middle High German G. hilflos = lcel. hjālp-lauss = Danish hjælpelös = Swedish hjelplös); from help + -less.
 

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/ˈhɛlplɛs/
by American Heritage

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