How To Use Helpless In A Sentence

Often the parent feels helpless and very discouraged and may also give up on the child which reinforces the child's feelings of inadequacy and may cause the child to retreat or regress further.
They don't really have a choice Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become an alien, an aileron and an ailurophile. Lore Sj
I used to read it aloud to my little brother, and we'd collapse into helpless laughter.
On no night did I see more than forty or fifty who might be said to be "soused"; on no night did I see more than a dozen or fifteen who had to be thrown into the accommodation barge with the "dead ones," the helpless ones who were so far gone that they had to be carried up the sides of their ships from the barge which made the last rounds of the fleet. The U-boat hunters
I was overwhelmed by a feeling of helplessness as I watched her being wheeled into the operating theatre.

I was helplessly trapped in the cockpit with the aircraft lying on its starboard side.
A senior paediatrician who works with such families compared it to the intense love a besotted parent feels for an entirely helpless newborn. Times, Sunday Times
I wanted, desperately needed for him to reach across the line that he had drawn, and so it was with dumb horror that I watched him retreat, his expression turning lawyerly even as I read the helplessness in his eyes. Dreaming in French
One moment she was mopping the floors with her balai espagnole ... and the next she was lying helpless on the cold wet tiles. Troisième age - French Word-A-Day
The unhappy helplessness of the man in the foxskin coat evidently afforded him great pleasure. The Schoolmistress and other stories
The themes of separation and helplessness are probably objectifications of his own grief over the loss of his wife.
I am oppressed by a nameless and mysterious suffering, .. my brain is darkened, -- my thoughts but half-formed and never wholly uttered, and I, -- I who once deemed human intelligence and reason all-supreme, all-clear, all-absolute, am now compelled to use that reason reasonlessly, and to work with that intelligence in helpless ignorance as to what end my mental toil shall serve! Ardath
Their son watched helplessly as they vanished beneath the waves.
Instead, all the clifty defiles of the ranges were filled with the roar of flames and the crackling of burning timbers as town after town was given to the firebrand, and the homeless, helpless Cherokees frantically fleeing to the densest coverts of the wilderness, -- that powerful truculent tribe! The Frontiersmen
Individuals can respond to these experiences with intense fear, horror or a sense of helplessness.
In the town of Golden Meadow, along Bayou Lafourche, crabber Thomas Barrios said he felt "devastated" and "helpless. BP installs insertion tube, begins siphoning oil from leaking pipe
Practice periods that end in gloom and despondency must be avoided - they have the opposite effect of reinforcing or "conditioning" helplessness. The Secrets of Musical Confidence
They know the frustration, the anxiety, the helplessness and the embarrassment of being on the mound and throwing pitches nowhere near home plate, heaving some to the backstop.
What this film does get right is the utter helplessness of man when pitted against a shark in a battle of life or death.
Bewildered by the suddenness of this blow, I could but watch in helpless silence the advancing throng, with my poor friends in their midst, their hands bound, their tottering footsteps directed by rude shoves towards the pipul tree, the accustomed assembly place of the villagers and the village council. Tales of Destiny
The audience was helpless with laughter.
Some protest that this affirmation comes at a cost: you cannot receive it unless you first abase yourself as a hopeless and helpless sinner in need of redemption.
Extreme Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore SjÃ¶berg eventually overcame these handicaps to discover that the word "cyberathlete" returns over 150,000 hits on Google. New Products Needed for Cyberathletes and Console Slugs
You always need secrets to barter with, the more important the secrets the safer you are, because you never know when you or an underling or overling will make the mistake that leaves you as naked and as helpless as a spiked butterfly. Noble House
Substantial, wholesome, and clean -- though generated by a wet, helpless creature having no personal charms, and which, having passed the phase of life in which it enjoyed the gift of locomotion, has become a plant-like fixture to one spot -- the gas mingles with other diffusions of the reef, recalling villanous salt-petre and sheepdips and brimstone and treacle to the stimulation of the mental faculties generally. My Tropic Isle
Her Connie exudes calm confidence one second and is helplessly expressive the next. Times, Sunday Times
To teach them to embrace dependency on the government is to embrace learned helplessness.
He drew long, soft, angry breaths, waiting mute and dangerous inside his helplessness like a beast in its lair.
My colleague and I looked at each other and then dissolved into helpless laughter.
There had to be a reason why he lost control and watched helplessly as his own body committed such an outrageous act.
The authorities are pressuring me to bring these people to them to record their statements but I am helpless as they refuse to go.
The writer's body finds itself dismantled, brutalised, shook up, helpless, useless puppet, prey to disorganised ideas.
It must have morphed into the helpless testudinal phase unexpectedly and died when one of the carnivores found it. Perseus Spur
It was at this point I rolled off the sofa with helpless mirth. Times, Sunday Times
Vale watched helplessly as a series of explosions reduced the once-proud cruiser to a blackened derelict.
This music is helpless if you want to kill it," Auguin quips. Auguin brings stripped-down version of 'Salome' to Kennedy Center
The sight of the helpless little boy aroused her maternal instinct.
And in the afternoon we went for a row on the river, pulling easily up the anabranch and floating down with the stream under the shade of the river timber -- instead of going to sleep and waking up helpless and soaked in perspiration, to find the women with headaches, as many do on Children of the Bush
The walls of the Kingdom started to crumble and collapse, huge pieces falling down onto the helpless Elves.
This group of people living in subterranean shanties are proof that, as one of them says in the film, ‘homeless doesn't mean helpless.’
I say that as a graduate of the University of Virginia who collapses in helpless laughter whenever I hear someone use the term “Virginia gentleman”. Matthew Yglesias » A New First
The next stage, she says, is an attitude of helplessness about work, the full-blown Sisyphus complex.
And I, helplessly impaled upon it's keratinous trident! Grade A Twats
Cold and hungry, they drifted helplessly towards the Arctic.
I saw nothing of the man but his posture of loose-limbed, helpless drunkenness and the ill-assorted covering of filthy clothing that concealed it.
He looks at her helplessly, then makes as if to say something.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
Experts say some of that helplessness may be erased by commune council elections, held for the first time in 2002, which could give villagers more influence over local planning.
This high-principled lophobranch is so careful of its callow and helpless young that it carries about the unhatched eggs with him under his own tail, in what scientific ichthyologists pleasantly describe as a subcaudal pouch or cutaneous receptacle. Science in Arcady
ANY way was an act of violence, for what did it consist of but the obtrusion of the idea of grossness and guilt on a small helpless creature who had been for me a revelation of the possibilities of beautiful intercourse? The Turn of the Screw
She has the mobile, expressive face of an intelligent, successful woman: but her limbs are helpless, twisted with painful spasms.
The murderously obscene verse that he occasionally turned on his rivals and enemies matched the aggression and violence of the time, but it also sprang from the same tormented and inspired source as his own helpless love.
Oh, buffalo!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands, while Little An stared in horror and absolutely beat his forehead with his fists, and the hapless victim struggled helplessly, distracted and outraged - for I have my dignity, dammit, and I bar being unbreeched and assailed by opium-sodden houris, however be-witching, without even a by-your-leave. Flashman And The Dragon
It stood near the window; its thick trunk, barkless, with a rotten heart, prevented the light from entering the room; the bent, black branches, devoid of leaves, stretched themselves mournfully and helplessly in the air, and shaking to and fro, they creaked softly, plaintively. The Man Who Was Afraid
helpless and desperate--as if at the end of his tether
We were helpless to stop the slaughter.
Yet this suggests that they are merely helpless victims of economic circumstances. Times, Sunday Times
Inside the bank building, five robbers dressed in black cloaks and Halloween masks upheld a reign of terror over the helpless customers and bank tellers trapped inside.
His description of how he watched helplessly as one of the deadly missiles thundered towards him makes chilling reading.
And in that time, in a large cage of concrete and iron, Ben Bolt had exercised and recovered the use of his muscles, and added to his hatred of the two-legged things, puny against him in themselves, who by trick and wile had so helplessly imprisoned him. CHAPTER XXXIII
Jenny had to look on helplessly as her tiny son was weaned off the effects of heroin.
According to the Office of Medical Services '(OMS) guidelines, these techniques were designed to "psychologically' dislocate 'the detainee, maximize his feeling of vulnerability and helplessness, and reduce or eliminate his will to resist our efforts to obtain critical intelligence. Human Rights First: The Professionalization of Torture
I used to read it aloud to my little brother, and we'd collapse into helpless laughter.
His body shook with a memory he had tried to forget, but the woman lying helpless on his couch was bringing it all back to him.
Teams get momentum and it might only last ten minutes but you suddenly feel helpless. Times, Sunday Times
Because we emphasise instrumentality rather than ‘that which God does’, it might well be that the Almighty has already left us alone to discover our helplessness.
This high-principled lophobranch is so careful of its callow and helpless young that it carries about the unhatched eggs with him under his own tail, in what scientific ichthyologists pleasantly describe as a subcaudal pouch or cutaneous receptacle. Science in Arcady
Defending the weak and helpless may mean using strong and muscular language to warn the unwary of the designs of those who seek their ruin. Christianity Today
On this street was a throng of trucks and wagons lading and unlading; bales and boxes rose and sank by pulleys overhead; the footway was a labyrinth of packages of every shape and size: there was no flagging of the pitiless energy that moved all forward, no sign of how heavy a weight lay on it, save in the reeking faces of its helpless instruments. Complete March Family Trilogy
Even today, as she lay helpless in my lap, waiting for him and TFR to return from his daycare so he could say goodbye, just the sound of his name perked her up momentarily. Memento Moron: Remember, Thou Art Stupid
Being with Lydie when she was so weak and helpless caused Jamie to become distressed.
I was left helpless with pain and fever.
he was helpless in an important sector of his life
A pitying neighbor had given them their supper; and they were told that their mother had gone out early in the morning, soon after they had gone to business, and, re-appearing with a carter, had had her few possessions carried away, leaving no word whither she was bound, or message for the helpless children. Uncle Rutherford's Nieces A Story for Girls
He lay helpless in the street under the pitying gaze of the bystanders.
I carried him indoors, and "mothered" the little helpless thing as well as I could, by feeding him with hard-boiled yolk of egg mixed with brown bread and water. Wild Nature Won By Kindness
Jesus is coming this time not as a helpless baby in a manger, not as a man of sorrows, but as victor and conqueror to claim his own.
Many last-borns capitalize on their position as smallest and weakest by elevating helplessness to a high art.
But sometimes, just like that helpless hatchling struggling for survival, in order to truly help, we need to step away, let it go, and watch that birdling fly. Layla Revis: Mrs. Fix It
Loren fought the feeling of helpless panic that threatened to engulf him.
Time has come for introspection by them who owe allegiance to Advanian hinduism, and pondering by political population, that what the country has achieved till date by destabilising the settled communal harmony of this country by hurting the sentiment of a community – and more so, in this sub-continent, where helpless hindus have been suffering continuously since Dec 1992 in the name of retaliations. -- from bijan ghosh date 5 March 2009 14:44 subject india New Lawyers Chambers Supreme Court Buildings New Delhi 110 001 1:20 PM Archive 2009-03-01
It's almost amusing, until one of them sinks into a pool of oily sludge and wings greased, struggles helplessly to get free as the others fly off.
He allowed the crowd to sweep him along in their stampede, helpless to do anything else, and was carried outside.
Under the premise of the primogeniture, the Queen is usually when no other male heir choice of helplessness.
As her mother, the pain and anxiety I feel for her is indescribable and the feeling of helplessness overwhelming. The Sun
The typical Czech "greengrocer" - Havel's famous description of the symbolic Czech Everyman - did not believe Soviet propaganda, but felt helplessly enmeshed in it. Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion
The incident left me with a sense of helplessness.
Yet this suggests that they are merely helpless victims of economic circumstances. Times, Sunday Times
Diane clutched my hand and looked at me with a hunger in her eyes, a come-hither look that always made me feel weak-kneed and helpless, like putty in her hands.
Gardner and teammates watched helplessly as the final six seconds ticked off the clock.
Optimism turns to pessimism and a growing sense of helplessness, however, as funds are depleted and rejection letters arrive.
Mrs. Dickinson, presently "coming up with" Rosamund's party, became absolutely "waggish" (the Dean's expression), and made Rosamund laugh with that almost helpless spontaneity which is the greatest compliment to a joke. In the Wilderness
Nor do we taint John Le Carre's understated brilliance with the unpalatable thought that Jeffrey Archer is forever trying helplessly to write in roughly the same genre.
Soon everything was on fire and she watched helplessly as her skin blistered and burned.
everyone was aware of the approaching doom but was helpless to avoid it
Again, my heart pleaded for justice and mercy; for _justice_ to all; and for _mercy_ to the needy and helpless. Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again A Life Story
I clenched my fists helplessly and struggled back to a sitting position, thinking unprintable thoughts.
He drew his chair forward; he pushed it back; he looked perfectly incensed , and perfectly helpless.
He and his political cronies are guilty of cruel and inhuman treatment of a helpless human.
Is there anything worse than watching someone you love have to suffer while you're helpless to do anything to help?
Despite having the best network defenses, enterprises were helpless to maintain their peak level of operation.
The only strong caveat involves a startling scene early in the film in which Charlie is forced by his father to drown a helpless dog.
the vast sea of humanity,you are my only worry is not to give up,I can't let go of the helpless,whether you go to the remotest corners of the globe,I will bless you!
There are exquisite touches, executed with extraordinary skill: the allegorically suggestive tear in the curtain; the artist's helpless dishabille; the uniquely knowing expression on the face of the central woman.
His parents tolerate the sudden plunge into secularism with helpless concern.
In its first season under coach Matthew Driscoll, North Florida made clear strides from the helpless team it was in 2008-09, winning five more games and qualifying for the conference tournament in its first year of eligibility. Atlantic Sun Conference
Hatchlings are almost naked, their eyes are closed, and they are helpless, but they develop rapidly.
I felt frustrated and helpless and just wanted to see if there was anything I could do.
Kelsey and I watched in shock as people yelled in fear and ran from the fire; scared dogs began barking and yelping, helpless in their cages.
Attempts at speech result in helpless coughing fits. Missive from the sickbed
To take advantage of the hopeless is truly despicable, but to prey on the helpless, whether directly or indirectly, is criminal.
I can remember well my bewilderment and sense of helplessness when given the task of identifying a topic, posing 'the question', creating hypotheses, and identifying an appropriate research methodology.
He felt helpless as he watched her fight against the pain that was racking her body.
What could I, helpless, houseless, fortuneless, be but a weight upon that buoyancy and ambition of eminence which marks superior natures for the superior honours of life. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 357, June, 1845
The old colourman had the strength of a lion in that great trunk of his, but he was helpless in the hands of the two experienced man-handlers. The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes
He'd mesmerised the home defence with a beautiful dummy before picking up a short pass and slotting the ball past the helpless Roy Carroll.
Each day tens of thousands of parents around the world watch helplessly as their children die from illnesses that can be easily treated with medications that cost only pennies, but which are out of reach to the impoverished.
She looked back on the transformation in herself with a kind of helpless resignation.
Lake Ahquabi, where I did all my formative swimming and sunburning, may not have the romance of Cape Cod or the grandeur of the rockribbed coast of Maine, but then neither did it grab you by the legs and carry you off helplessly to Newfoundland. I'm A Stranger Here Myself
A newborn from a so-called precocial species -- one that isn't utterly helpless without its parents -- learns to recognize its parents 'traits in a process known as filial imprinting. Informed Reader
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
I distinctly remember the overwhelming feeling of abject helplessness which this incident brought about.
Compared with the foreign teachers, the domestic have to confront more work contest, as a result, more mental disorder, professional accidie and sense of helplessness.
The love that drives him increasingly looks like something baser and less flattering--a kind of bewitchment he seems helpless against, though it comes from within. Archive 2009-08-16
Hence the Negro, at the close of the war, was all that American slavery would make any people, viz.: bestialized and animalized; ignorant, poor, crude, rude; helpless, moneyless and thoughtless. Africa and the American Negro...Addresses and Proceedings of the Congress on Africa Held Under the Auspices of the Stewart Missionary Foundation for Africa of Gammon Theological Seminary in Connection with the Cotton States and International Exposition De
He pulled the sheets open for her and eased her in and tucked her inside like she was a helpless puppy.
To imagine that one could have done better may be more tolerable than to face the reality of utter helplessness. Trauma and Recovery
All of them plead helplessness due to lack of funds and lack of manpower.
this helplessly unworldly woman
When I had realized that I had voiced my thought aloud, I turned a helpless shade of cherry red and smiled sheepishly.
An instant later Du Mont, who was in the lead, leaped swiftly backward and, crashing into the heavier and clumsier Xavier bowled him over into the snow, where both wallowed helplessly, held down by Xavier's heavy pack. The Gun-Brand
But in all this there is no difference between a physicist, a historian, and a philosopher; and again, slowness, want of skill, and even helplessness are something totally different from the peculiar kind of irresolution that Hamlet shows. Shakespearean Tragedy Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth
Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal 'One feature shared by all successful surgeons is the ability to stand confidently beside a trusting, helpless and anesthetized patient, make a deliberate incision on unblemished skin and carry out often complex and sometimes lifethreatening maneuvers inside a body cavity. Healing Reads: The Year's Five Best Books
Humans, especially females, are likewise evolutionarily wired to respond in a nurturing way to faces that have a quality of neoteny, which is to say, the retention of infantile characteristics: large head, wide and prominent eyes, slightly helpless and winsome. For the Cheerleader in Everyone
the vast sea of humanity,you are my only worry is not to give up,I can't let go of the helpless,whether you go to the remotest corners of the globe,I will bless you!
Infuriated residents watched on helplessly as lorry loads of human waste sludge was dumped within 40 metres of their homes last weekend.
Images portraying individuals with disabilities also as parents, teachers, sales people, managers, business owners, doctors/nurses or lawyers, would aid in dispelling the helpless/dependent stereotype often facing people with disabilities. Do It Myself Blog – Glenda Watson Hyatt » 2007 » April
And in her agony, in her utter helplessness, mentioned the unmentionable.
Alone in my room after the first wave of attack had finally subsided, helplessness reduced me to hot, angry tears. Times, Sunday Times
Why do we decide it is none of our business or that we are helpless to do anything about it?
Criminals strike - be they serial killer, bank robber, or bioterrorist - and the FBI is seemingly helpless to track them down.
I couldn't think of why anyone would be sneaking around; I was already pretty much helpless as far as they were concerned.
Women have similar stories to tell - of misuse of power and of their helplessness in situations where the harassment is short of violent assault or rape.
The overriding feeling is often a sense of helplessness. Christianity Today
For instance, my high-school self — skinny, scabby, giggly, gabby, frantic to be noticed, tormented enough to be a tormentor, relentlessly pushing his cartoons and posters and noisy jokes and pseudo-sophisticated poems upon the helpless-high school — strikes me now as considerably obnoxious, though I owe him a lot: without his frantic ambition and insecurity I would not now be sitting on (as my present home was named by others) Haven Hill. John updike | march 18, 1932 – january 27, 2009 « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground
She drifted helplessly along in calm water at just over three knots, making it virtually impossible to assess her sailing characteristics.
In 1984, when I was taking care of the riot victims, I saw the same nameless fear and helpless misery.
I couldn't find any words to say, and instead gestured helplessly.
He is worried for you and feels helpless to protect you. The Sun
He felt helpless because he could not do anything to save innocent lives and bring succour to them.
If it didn't, the user is going to feel helpless and out of control, the same way I felt when the wheels of the dough bathtub didn't turn the way I pushed them, and I bumped into a wall. Bonk.
The secretary who once thought that he was in total power and control now felt helpless and terrified.
Unable to swim, he watched helplessly as the child struggled desperately in the water.
This ubiquity of unavoidable helplessness points to the possibility that dependency is not peripheral to the social order, but is somehow central to it.
Contrary to popular belief, bats are not helpless on the ground or in the water, and some insectivorous species feed on ground-dwelling insects as much or more than they feed on insects captured in flight.
It has come from a tiny helpless seed to a living plantlet with the smallest stem and root, and while the stem fights for a place in the air the root never ceases to get a strong hold of the dear earth in which the plant finds its home. Music Talks with Children
Life is a precious gift from God, and no one has a right to risk his life in a rash foolhardiness, which is very different from the true courage which does not shrink from facing danger if the life of one more helpless than himself is in peril. Twilight and Dawn Simple Talks on the Six Days of Creation
This called for light to climb by, since he relished a night on the ground inside the forest still less than he liked the idea of crouching helpless in the grass. Tunnel In The Sky
Unbelievably, a few days later, the neighbor's wife was again victimized as her car was blocked by another vehicle, forcing her to sit, petrified and helpless, while a youth stood at her driver's side window shouting profanities at her. Archive 2005-05-01
They'd always been besotted, which meant they didn't really need a helpless, totally dependent infant to love them best in the world. SOMEBODY
She shrugged helplessly at him as she pulled on the guy's coat but stopped short when she read the name boldly printed in curving letters: Brad.
If he backs down now, he will add weak and indecisive to naive and helpless. Times, Sunday Times
In his treatment of the sexual undertones of courtly love and seventeenth-century gallantry, Maidment's wicked sense of humour could reduce a tutorial to helpless laughter.
However, being in China for 16 months and basically seeing/reading more injustice, empty/uneducated criticisms, and helplessness than actual Truth and constructiveness mostly in form of each side bashing the other's media outlets - yes, I do have my own opinions: A press should always be free! Archive 2008-11-01
They say he’s watching us from the heavens. If he doesn’t answer, I tell him in this poem that I’m going to pull this curtain of the sky and forget about him. It is a way of expressing my anguish, written when I felt helpless. Gulzar
She clutched my hand and looked at me with a hunger in her eyes, a come-hither look that always made me feel weak-kneed and helpless, like putty in her hands.
It made uncertainty a principle of government and reduced the regime's victims to helplessness.
This induces a feeling of helplessness and engenders a belief in hidden explanations and conspiracy theories.
Because when George Bush got elected the second time you really felt helpless, and then with Obama there was this onrush of hope and ambitiousness, and then... we've been kind of disappointed. Ben Evans: John Dunsworth of Trailer Park Boys on Liquor and Politics
Here he found himself almost equally helpless; for what male wit is adequate to the thousand little coquetries practised in such arrangements? how can masculine eyes judge of the degree of demi-jour which is to be admitted into a decorated apartment, or discriminate where the broad light should be suffered to fall on a tolerable picture, where it should be excluded, lest the stiff daub of a periwigged grandsire should become too rigidly prominent? Saint Ronan's Well
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
Friends and family quickly came to the helpless dog's aid, rescuing and reviving him from almost certain death.
One of my sisters-in-law, a former pro photographer, took my author photos and made me giggle helplessly as she did it, instead of freezing up with my most camera-shy grimace. The scary bits at SF Novelists
Madeline is devastated by guilt and anguished over her helplessness.
Three sharp raps at the door interrupted his speech and Ben looked helplessly to Marie.
Finding his op-ponent helpless, Emien crossed his dagger over his quillon and bore down with both hands. Stormwarden
Feeling hopeless and helpless? The Sun
Fatalism is the helpless feeling of every individual life living in reality.
Death, its inexorability, and our fear of it render us as helpless as when we were toddlers.
No, sir, if Brother John _or you either, _ should drink one drop of the liquors mentioned and be expelled therefor, you would both be helplessly beyond the pale of the lodge, even though you had _both taken the obligation a thousand times! Something of Men I Have Known With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective
The van was seemingly abandoned by police – no officers were inside as protesters started to vandalise it, and police looked on helplessly from around 50 metres away as activists climbed onto the roof, smashed windows, spraypainted its sides and, at one point, threw a smoke bomb inside. Second day of student protests - how the demonstrations happened
Fast bowlers bang the ball in but nothing hits the splice of the bat, there are no edges, shoulders drop and there is an air of lethargy and helplessness in the movement of fielders.
The south was powerless, helpless. Democracy and its Critics - Anglo-American democratic thought in the nineteenth century
The crux is that when these young men encounter resistance beyond the family for the first time - when they don't get into university or college, for example - they react helplessly and destructively.
Did she lose her head or courage, or misplay her muscular part for a moment, she could be hurled a hundred feet by that giant buffet and left wrenched, helpless, and breathless to be pulped on the coral bottom and sucked out by the undertow to be battened on by the fish-sharks too cowardly to take their human meat alive. THE KANAKA SURF
It would demonstrate American capabilities to the armed punks who rape, torture and murder the unarmed and helpless on a daily basis.
To not know is bewildering and only contributes to and compounds the feelings of helplessness and powerlessness that the bereaved parents will feel. Times, Sunday Times
His stricken plane floats helplessly through the azure sky. Times, Sunday Times
lying ill and helpless
Sue, Mrs. Milo's petiteness became weakness, her dainty trimness accentuated her helplessness, her delicate coloring looked ill-health; while Sue, by contrast, seemed over-high as to color, almost boisterous of voice, and careless in dress. Apron-Strings
Dover and I could but hold our hands in helplessness and watch the antics of our hoary marvel. THE REJUVENATION OF MAJOR RATHBONE
Two to five cubs are born in a litter, blind and helpless.
Many people have given way to despondency and helplessness, having lost faith in leaders and politicians.
If we love the creatures of earth, who are so gaily irresponsible, so full of zest, we shall share with them the large-hearted merriment of comradeship, and find that the blessing of the helpless is the key to unlock the world. The Spring of Joy: A Little Book of Healing
More from the Yale study: campaigns that focus solely on the negative consequences of HIV infection may serve to disempower men with HIV by making them appear weak, helpless or diseased; depictions of visible symptoms reinforce commonly held beliefs... Sean Strub: 'It's Never Just HIV' Ad Campaign Oversimplifies the Issue
Think not to leave thy old grannam lone and lorn and helpless -- nor this our fair maid. The Geste of Duke Jocelyn
Clove Lloyd looked helpless, when despite having 7 fielders on the offside, Vishy was still able to play his royal square-cut.
He felt humiliated and helpless; his bitter enemy and master, Hassanali Fakhru, stood in the doorway and spoke.
This makes me feel helpless and is making me dependent on Jazlyn's help.
When I see her in these moods there's this very satiable feeling of hopelessness, helplessness and this suffocating feeling of needing to be helped. Indiankurtis Diary Entry

How To Use Helpless In A Sentence

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