Helpless

  

Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Helpless

Definition: Helpless

Helpless

Adjective

1. Lacking in or deprived of strength or power; "lying ill and helpless"; "helpless with laughter".

2. Unable to function; without help.

3. Unable to manage independently; "as helpless as a baby".

Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
 

Date "helpless" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1010. (references)

 

Specialty Definition: Helpless

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Helpless is a play by Dusty Hughes which premièred at the Donmar Warehouse, London on March 2, 2000. It is set in England before, during, and after the 1997 general elections, which resulted in New Labour's landslide victory and in Tony Blair becoming Prime Minister.

Outline of the plot

Warning: Wikipedia contains spoilers

Will and Claire are typical children of the Sixties: They had their socialist and Marxist ideals and, a couple back then, rebelled against the Establishment and, generally, tried to fight for what they considered the right causes. They also tried to adapt their own lifestyle to their ideals. But a quarter of a century or more later, circumstances have forced them to change: Will and Claire have long split up. Will is now a minor actor doing TV commercials and sharing his flat with his grown-up daughter, Frankie. Claire is abroad most of the time doing charity work in Third World countries. Although raised to be a critical and independent young woman, Frankie has nevertheless adopted one or two characteristics of her own generation. When the play opens she is having an affair with Ben, a young man her age who works in the phone centre of some courier service.

Will meets a woman in her early thirties, Kate, who is desperate to find a man who will make her pregnant. She thinks she has found the right one in Will when they meet by chance. Will is too weak to openly tell her that, at 48, he would rather not be a father again. At the same time, at a book launch, Frankie -- who goes there instead of her father -- is chatted up by Hugh. Hugh is in fact her godfather and an old friend of her parents', but over the past decades they have drifted apart. At first Frankie openly tells him that he is too old for her ("I don't do dinners"), but then she genuinely (or so) falls in love with him and chucks Ben, who, as a consequence, turns pathological and starts following her around, declaring his love for her. Hugh has become a bestselling author under the nom de plume of Alice Wilde, writing popular novels where "something happens in every paragraph" (Will). This is how Hugh has got rid of his old convictions -- by making money and being successful (and even being offered an OBE). He has left his wife and his three kids and now starts living with Frankie.

Gradually, the follies of their youth come to the surface. Early in May 1997, at Hugh's flat, they all come together to have an election party (with the TV turned off), clinging to what has been left of their left-wing ideals and reminiscing about the old days. For example, Will has brought two heavy boxes containing all his LPs of the sixties and seventies, which he gives to Frankie as a present.) They smoke a joint together (including Frankie -- this is how she has been brought up, too). Their meeting is also some kind of reunion: For the first time after more than a year, Will and Claire see their daughter again.

From Hugh's point of view, their (married) life is not really so great as may be expected. Hugh misses his children enormously (they still phone him and tell him about the little things they have just been doing) but he is not at all encouraged by Frankie to go and see them. Hugh has been given a seven-figure contract for three new novels, but now, after the first one, he seems to have writer's block. Hugh and Frankie have been travelling around a lot, Hugh has sold his house in India, and under Frankie's influence, they have given a considerable amount of money to charitable causes (the wrong ones, Claire thinks). Hugh asks Will to explain his looming financial crisis to Frankie, but Will refuses ("She's your problem now.").

During that election party Claire, high on pot, talks about her fling with Hugh way back in the seventies -- an affair Will knew about and (willy-nilly) approved of but which is news to the horrified Frankie. It turns out that Claire's life has not been easy: She has been held responsible for the deaths of a group of freedom fighters in Africa who, as she claims, acted against her instructions and who were shot by enemies. As far as her private life is concerned, she admits that she has been chasing a French doctor across half the continent, but in the end he found someone else. Now she offers Will to move in with her again.

Will, however, has other plans. He has an on-and-off relationship with Kate. It takes Kate a long time (too long really) to find out that Will does not want to make her pregnant ("Did you come this morning? Did you ejaculate?" -- this is what she asks him in front of the others. Only gradually does he admit that he has faked an orgasm.). In order not to have to admit that he is unwilling to be a father again, he is even prepared to pay £2,000 for artificial insemination (IVF). Will and Kate go to the clinic together, Kate is operated on and six of her eggs are removed from her womb for insemination with Will's sperm. But Will is not capable (mentally rather than physically) to ejaculate in the small room that has been provided for that purpose. (He claims to be completely exhausted, and that his mobile phone started ringing while he was trying.) So Kate walks out on him. In the final scene, however, she is nine months pregnant. Will readily admits he is not the father but he and Kate will stay together, and he will assist her in bringing up her child, although -- the biological father being black ("Nigerian") -- everybody will realize that it is not his child.

From the reviews

"If anyone out there wonders whatever happened to the hard-Left, young things of the Seventies, Dusty Hughes has an answer. In his appealing comedy of disillusion and disappointment, Hughes sets his sights upon three lapsed Lefties for whom the middle-aged pursuit of love, and particularly young lovers, has replaced politics. Souls have been sold. Ideals put out to grass. And Hughes puts a genial cynicism to work at his middle-aged trio's expense. But the ample mockery to which he subjects these lost-hopers is not hostile. For Hughes was fairly far to the Left in his own youth. Helpless's rueful fun is essentially lighthearted. It never stoops to serious political argument or recriminations. But, oh, how the play looks back in witty nostalgia to a lost England of plenty when we "had everything. Free orange juice. Free milk. Free education. Free love…" Hughes skims lightly and at speed over things political. His 90-minute play is far more a light comedy of sexual and social manners, made piquant by the gulf between the generations, than it is political elegy." (The London Evening Standard).

"Utterly slick and relentlessly determined to entertain, Helpless, a new play by Dusty Hughes at the Donmar Warehouse, lives solely on the surface. Its six characters all sound like mere Characters In Plays, nothing more. They have flamboyant entrance lines in which they draw attention to themselves and deliver more plot exposition than is sane; they go in for longer-than-long conversations of oneliners (like endless tennis rallies between players you don't care about); they do a great deal of speaking at cross-purposes. All of which makes all six of them deeply irritating, and all of which proves wholly contrived. Hughes's themes feel like so much tokenism. None of the characters is believable. Or interesting. Worst, in a play about different kinds of liberal socialists between the late 1990s and today, the unspontaneous soundbite artificiality of the way they talk just sounds like so much spin." (The Financial Times).

"Helpless" is a song by Neil Young first performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young on their 1970 album Déjà Vu.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Helpless."

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Synonyms: Helpless

Synonyms: incapacitated (adj), lost (adj). (additional references)

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Synonyms within Context: Helpless

ContextSynonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).

Danger

Tottering; unstable, unsteady; shaky, top-heavy, tumbledown, ramshackle, crumbling, waterlogged; helpless, guideless; in a bad way; reduced to the last extremity, at the last extremity; trembling in the balance; nodding to its fall; (destruction). threatening; ominous, illomened; alarming; (fear); explosive.

Impotence

Paralytic, paralyzed; palsied, imbecile; nerveless, sinewless, marrowless, pithless, lustless; emasculate, disjointed; out of joint, out of gear; unnerved, unhinged; water-logged, on one's beam ends, rudderless; laid on one's back; done up, dead beat, exhausted, demoralized; graveled; (in difficulty); helpless, unfriended, fatherless; without a leg to stand on, hors de combat, laid on the shelf.

Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

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Crosswords: Helpless

English words defined with "helpless": A forlorn hope, Aidless, Altrices, attentivenessday of reckoning, defencelessness, defenselessness, destiny, doom, DoomsdayEuropean rabbitfateheed, heedlessness, helplesslyimpotently, Inaidable, inattentivenessOld World rabbit, Oryctolagus cuniculuspasseriform bird, passerine, paying attention, prostrateregard, reign, rollingsector, sphereTo be or lie on one's backunable to help, unprotectedness, Unshiftable. (references)
Specialty definitions using "helpless": DynamiteKnight of the Bleeding HeartSpurs. (references)
Etymologies containing "helpless": Inaidable. (references)

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Modern Usage: Helpless

DomainUsage

Screenplays

My story starts at sea a perilous voyage to an unknown land a shipwreck the wild waters roar and heave the brave vessel is dashed all to pieces, and all the helpless souls within her drowned all save one a lady whose soul is greater than the ocean and her spirit stronger than the sea's embrace not for her a watery end, but a new life beginning on a stranger shore (Shakespeare in Love; writing credit: Marc Norman; Tom Stoppard)

And you friendless, helpless, hopeless, brainless (The Princess Bride; writing credit: William Goldman)

Half meta-human, she has taken up her father's mantle and fights to protect the innocent and helpless. Joining her in this struggle, Oracle, once Batman's protégé, Batgirl, she was caught in the crossfire of the war between Batman and Joker (Birds of Prey; writing credit: Adam Armus; Nora Kay Foster)

We're not helpless. Together, we're part of the roughest, toughest, biggest, kindest, fairest, bestest darn gang in the whole world (The Return of Captain Invincible; writing credit: Andrew Gaty; Steven E. de Souza)

Poor little Judith, helpless, brushing her hair, young and naked (Halloween: Resurrection; writing credit: Debra Hill; John Carpenter)

Lyrics

The helpless heart just can't resist their power (I Get Weak; performing artist: Belinda Carlisle)

Turnaround, Every now and then I get a little bit helpless and I'm lying like a child in your arms (TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART; performing artist: Bonnie Tyler)

I'm as helpless as a ship without a wheel (Lost Without Your Love; performing artist: BREAD)

Then when you find yourself lyin' helpless in her arms (Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?; performing artist: Bryan Adams)

And in the night, I could be helpless (When You're Gone; performing artist: The Cranberries)

Clever

Handicapped is not helpless. (references; author: unknown)

Movie/TV Titles

The Helpless Hippo (1953)

Helpless Heroines Volume 3: Girls Will Bind Girls (2002)

How to Make Your Lover Helpless (1995)

Helpless Coeds (1987)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Commercial Usage: Helpless

DomainTitle

Books

  • Around the House: The Complete, Easy-To-Use Guide for Handy or Helpless Homeowners (reference)

  • Catch of the Day: The Case of the Helpless Humpbacks (reference)

  • Homeless Not Helpless (reference)

  • Managing Your Anxiety: Regaining Control When You Feel Stressed, Helpless, and Alone (reference)

  • The History of Helpless Harry (reference)

    (more book examples)

  

Music

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Photo Album: Helpless

ThumbnailDescription & CreditThumbnailDescription & Credit

... the painful disfigurement of a child afflicted by yaws, the sorrow of a helpless mother. / WHO p. Credit: National Library of Medicine; photo by Eric Schwab..

England's nightmare. The Great Britain Gulliver overpowered and made helpless by French pygmies while asleep. Credit: Library of Congress.

Team work wins! Your work here makes their work over there possible With your help they are invincible, without it they are helpless / / Roy Hull Still. Credit: Library of Congress.

  

Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

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Digital Photo Gallery: Helpless
 

"Mid-summer day" by C.H. So
Commentary: "Another summery photograph to bring warmth to the cold and helpless people."

Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers.

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Familiar Quotations: Helpless

AuthorQuotation

Annie Bessant

Knowledge is essential to conquest, only according to our ignorance are we helpless.

Charles Reade

The absent are like children, helpless to defend themselves.

Euripides

The bold are helpless without cleverness.

William Blake

My mother groaned, my father wept, into the dangerous world I leapt; helpless, naked, piping loud, like a fiend hid in a cloud.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Historic Usage: Helpless

AuthorDateQuotation

John Locke

1690

From him the world is peopled with his descendants, who are all born infants, weak and helpless, without knowledge or understanding: but to supply the defects of this imperfect state, till the improvement of growth and age hath removed them, Adam and Eve, and after them all parents were, by the law of nature, under an obligation to preserve, nourish, and educate the children they had begotten; not as their own workmanship, but the workmanship of their own maker, the Almighty, to whom they were to be accountable for them. (Second Treatise of Government)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Use in Literature: Helpless

TitleAuthorQuote

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Joyce, James

He fancied to himself the English lecture and felt, even at that distance, restless and helpless.

King Richard III

Shakespeare, William

Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes

Grapes of Wrath

Steinbeck, John

He looked over at Joad and his face looked helpless.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Non-Fiction Usage: Helpless

SubjectTopicQuote

Health

Accepting help may be hard. When you allow others to help, you make them feel less helpless. (references)

The SCID mouse, which lacks a functioning immune system of its own, is helpless to fight infection or reject transplanted tissue. (references)

Unfortunately, they are not always able to do this. Grandparents may feel particularly lost and helpless, because they are concerned about their grandchild and at the same time cannot stop the suffering of their own child. (references)

Children

Cameroon

The Yaounde-based Center for Helpless Children, created by the Minister of Social Affairs in 1997, currently harbored 24 abandoned or abused children, a small fraction of the suspected cases of abused, abandoned, or neglected children. (references)

Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

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Speeches: Helpless

SpeakerTermPhrase(s)

Dwight Eisenhower

1953-1961We feel this moral strength because we know that we are not helpless prisoners of history.

Ronald Reagan

1981-1989But don't be fooled by those who proclaim that spending cuts will deprive the elderly, the needy, and the helpless.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Usage Frequency: Helpless

"Helpless" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 98.56% of the time. "Helpless" is used about 833 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)
Parts of SpeechPercentUsage per
100 Million Words
Rank in English
Adjective (general or positive)98.56%8218,521
Noun (proper)1.32%11106,044
Noun (plural)0.12%1339,140
                    Total100.00%833N/A

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Expressions: Helpless

Expression using "helpless": feel helpless. Additional references.

Hyphenated Usage

Beginning with "helpless": helpless-looking.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Helpless

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.
 
ExpressionFrequency
per Day
ExpressionFrequency
per Day

helpless

72

child helpless

3

helpless shirtless

15

child help helpless

3

chloroform girl helpless

10

handcuffs helpless story

3

girl helpless

8

helpless supergirl

3

bound helpless

8

amateur helpless hogtied picture

2

helpless woman wonder

8

chloroformed helpless

2

helpless lyrics

5

bed blonde gagged helpless tied

2

female helpless

5

helpless neil tab young

2

bondage helpless

5

helpless young

2

helpless hero

4

fuc helpless

2

helpless lyrics neil young

4

helpless slave

2

helpless woman

4

helpless heriones

2

helpless tied

3

helpless teen

2

helpless neil young

3
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translation: Helpless

Language Translations for "helpless"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.

Albanian

  

themeldalë (ruined, single), që s'mund të ndihmojë veten, papërkrahjeje, i pazoti (inapt, inartful, incapable, incompetent, unable, washed up), i pambrojtshëm (indefensible), i paaftë (bumbling, disabled, guiltless, impaired, impotent, inapt, incapable, incompetent, inefficient, inept, muff, spado, unable, unskilful, weak). (various references)

   

Arabic 

  

‏مغلوب على أمره (miserable, powerless), ‏لا حول ولا قوة له, ‏لا عون له, ‏عاجز (decrepit, disabled, effete, feckless, incapable, incompetent, ineffective, inert, infirm, invalid, paralysed, paralyzed, poor, powerless, unable), ‏ضعيف (atonic, cold, crazy, deficient, delicate, dim, emaciated, enervate, faint, feckless, feeble, flabby, flagging, fragile, frail, haggard, impotent, inaudible, infirm, invertebrate, lame, languid, languorous, lank, lean, limp, little, low, lower, nerveless, pale, powered, powerless, puny, rickety, run down, scant, scrawny, slender, slight, slim, small, soft, softy, streaked, supine, tenuous, thin, thready, toothless, unsubstantial, wan, weak, weakened, weakling, weakly, wimp, wishy washy), ‏بائس (afflicted, cheerless, deplorable, desolate, devil, disconsolate, distressed, forlorn, godforsaken, hapless, heel, lamentable, measly, miserable, paltry, pathetic, penurious, piteous, pitiful, poor, poverty stricken, ratty, sad, scruffy, seedy, sickly, sordid, squalid, unfortunate, unhappy, woeful, wretched). (various references)

   

Bulgarian 

  

безпомощен (feckless, lost, shiftless, silly, stranded, unable). (various references)

   

Chinese 

  

無助 , 无能为力 (impotent). (various references)

   

Czech

  

bezradný, bezmocný (forceless, nerveless, powerless), bezbranný (defenceless, defenseless, naked, vulnerable). (various references)

   

Dutch

  

waar niet aan te doen valt, hulpeloos. (various references)

   

Esperanto

  

senhelpa. (various references)

   

Finnish

  

avuton (incapable). (various references)

   

French

  

sans ressource, sans défense, perplexe, paumé, incapable, impuissant, impotent, faible, abandonné. (various references)

   

Frisian

  

helpleas. (various references)

   

German

  

ratlos (clueless, cluelessly, helplessly, perplex), hilflos (clueless, cluelessly, defenseless, helplessly, incapable, powerless, shiftlessly, stranded, unable). (various references)

   

Greek 

  

αβοήθητοσ (unaided, unassisted, unhelped), ανήμποροσ, ανήμπορος, ανίκανοσ (duffer, impotent, incapable, incompetent, inefficient, shiftless, unable, unfit), ανίκανος (incapable, incompetent, inept, powerless). (various references)

   

Hebrew 

  

אין אונים (powerless), אובד עצות (embarrassed, perplexed), חדל ישע, חדל אונים, חסר ישע (footless), חסר אונים (powerless). (various references)

   

Hungarian

  

tehetetlen (dud, feckless, impotent, incapable, nerveless, powerless, shiftless, sluggish, wimpy), gyámoltalan (resourceless, shiftless, supportless, unhelpful), támasz nélküli (supportless), haszontalan (barren, feckless, fiddling, frivolous, futile, good for nothing, idle, ineffectual, ne'er do well, ne'er-do-weel, null, otiose, punk, reprobate, unavailable, unavailing, unhelpful), gyám nélküli, ügyefogyott (bumbling, fumbler, galoot, resourceless, shiftless). (various references)

   

Indonesian

  

tak berdaya (defenseless, powerless). (various references)

   

Italian

  

senza aiuto (single handed, unaided), perplesso (bewildered, confused, distracted, distraught, perplexed, puzzled), indifeso (defenceless, defenseless, naked, undefended, unprotected), impotente (impotent, impuissant, powerless), impacciato (awkward, clumsy, uneasy, unwieldy), debole (dim, failing, faint, feeble, flimsy, frail, gone, impotent, infirm, light, nerveless, pale, powerless, strengthless, tenuous, unsound, weak, weak point, weakly). (various references)

   

Japanese Kanji 

  

遣る瀬無い (cheerless, disconsolate, downhearted, dreary, miserable), 遣る瀬ない (cheerless, disconsolate, downhearted, dreary, miserable), 頼り無い (flaky, forlorn, undependable, unreliable, vague), 頼りない (flaky, forlorn, undependable, unreliable, vague), 頼み少ない , 頑是無い (innocent), 頑是ない (innocent), 無援 (unsupporting), 無告 (out of resources), 哀れ  (grief, misery, pathos, pity, sorrow), 哀れ (compassion, grief, misery, pathos, pity, sorrow), 心細い (discouraging, disheartening, forlorn, hopeless, lonely, unpromising). (various references)

   

Japanese Katakana 

  

たのみすくない, たよりない (flaky, forlorn, undependable, unreliable, vague), がんぜない (innocent), こころぼそい (discouraging, disheartening, forlorn, hopeless, lonely, unpromising), あわれ (compassion, grief, misery, pathos, pity, sorrow), むこく (out of resources), むえん (salt free, smokeless, unidentified, unleaded, unrelatedness, unsupporting), やるせない (cheerless, disconsolate, downhearted, dreary, miserable). (various references)

   

Korean 

  

무력한 (impotent). (various references)

   

Manx

  

gyn cooney (feckless, singly, unaided), er troggloo (bedridden, dog-tired, exhausted, prostrated, unable to rise, worn out), anheiltagh (cripple, crippling, decrepit, feeble person). (various references)

   

Norwegian

  

hjelpeløs. (various references)

   

Pig Latin

  

elplesshay.(various references)

   

Portuguese

  

sem recursos (stranded), sem forma (characterless, shapeless), perdido (absent, absentee, devious, forfeit, forlorn, graceless, ill-favored, ill-favoured, lost, missing, out-of-the-way, perdu, strayed, undone, waste), desamparado (defenceless, derelict, destitute, forlorn, forsaken, friendless, naked, outcast, unrelieved), abandonado (abandoned, abandonee, alone, bereaved, bereft, comfortless, derelict, forlorn, forsaken, godforsaken, lonely, lorn, love-lorn, outcast, sole, stranded, unattended, unattending, uncared-for, unrelieved, unused, waste). (various references)

   

Romanian

  

slab (adynamic, angular, bad, cold, cranky, crazy, dicky, dim, Dotty, dull, faint, faintly, feckless, feeble, feebly, female, flabby, flaccid, flat, fleshless, flimsy, footless, forceless, frail, gaunt, groggy, impotent, inner, jaded, jejune, languid, languishing, languorous, lax, lean, Lenten, light, loose, low, meager, meagre, mean, mild, milk and water, namby-pamby, nerveless, one horse, pale, peaked, penny-a-line, pimping, poor, poorly, powerless, quiet, remotely, rickety, scraggy, scrawny, shaky, sickly, silly, skinny, slack, slight, small, soft, sorry, spare, squeal, stringent, tender, thin, washy, weak, weakly), slãbit (effete, flabby, loose, low, queer, weakened), neputincios (impotent, impuissant, incapable, infirm, limp, nerveless, palsied, shiftless, silly, slight), neajutorat (clumsy, unaided), neajutat (by oneself, clumsy, loose-fitting), iremediabil (hopeless, irrecoverable, irrecoverably, irredeemable, irremediable, irremediably, irreparable, irreparably), impotent (impotent). (various references)

   

Russian 

  

беспомощный (feckless, shiftless), беззащитный (defenceless, defenseless, indefensible). (various references)

   

Serbo-Croatian

  

bespomoćan (shiftless). (various references)

   

Spanish

  

desvalido (underdog). (various references)

   

Swedish

  

hjälplös (feckless, incapable, prostrate). (various references)

   

Turkish

  

yeteneksiz (inapt, ineffective, inept, talentless, unendowed, unskilful, untalented), güçsüz (crank, doughy, feeble, flabby, impotent, ineffectual, powerless, sapless, shaky, sinewless, strengthless, weak), biçare (shiftless, wretched), beceriksiz (awkward, bungler, bungling, clumsy, Duff, duffer, feckless, flat-footed, fumbling, gauche, gawky, ham-fisted, ham-handed, heavy-handed, impractical, inapt, incompetent, ineffective, ineffectual, inefficacious, inept, inexpert, left handed, lubber, maladroit, manque, ne'er do well, never-do-well, oaf, oafish, resourceless, rude, shiftless, slouch, unaccomplished, unhandy, unskilful, untalented), aciz (cheap, feckless, impotent, incapable, ineffectual, powerless, unable, weak), acíz (faint, light, weak), çaresiz (beyond retrieve, despairing, desperate, incurable, inevitable, irredeemable, irremediable, irreparable, past cure, past retrieve, remediless, shiftless, without means). (various references)

   

Ukrainian

  

нужденний (destitute, indigent, miserable, necessitous, needful, needy, penniless, poor, poverty stricken, poverty-struck), невправний (back-handed, non-skilled, unartful), безпорадний (feckless, overcome, shiftless), безпомічний (assistless, powerless). (various references)

   

Vietnamese 

  

không tự lo liệu được, bơ vơ (desolate, lone, lonely, lonesome). (various references)

   

Welsh

  

diymadferth. (various references)

Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Ancestral Language Translations: Helpless

LanguagePeriodTranslations
Latin500 BCE-Modern

inope, inopem, inopes, inopi, inopia, inopis, inops, inopum, inutile, inutilem, inutiles, inutilia, inutilis, perdita, perditam, perditi, perditis, perditorum, perditum, perditus. (various references)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Derivations & Misspellings: Helpless

Derivations

Words beginning with "helpless": helplessly, helplessness, helplessnesses. (additional references)


Misspellings

"Helpless" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: elpless, helpess, helpness. (additional references)

Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Rhyming with "Helpless"

# of Phoneme MatchesPronunciationWord(s) rhyming with "helpless" (pronounced he"lplus)
4-p l u saccomplice, hapless, hopeless, shapeless, sleepless, surplus, topless, zipless.
3-l u sacropolis, ageless, aimless, airless, Amaryllis, anomalous, atlas, bacillus, backless, balas, baseless, blameless, bloodless, bolus, boneless, bottomless, boundless, brainless, breathless, calculus, callous, callus, careless, Carolus, cashless, ceaseless, childless, classless, cloudless, clueless, Colas, colorless, cordless, countless, cutlass, defenseless, digitalis, directionless, doubtless, driverless, ductless, earless, effortless, endless, expressionless, eyeless, fabulous, faceless, fatherless, fearless, featherless, featureless, feckless, fellas, fenceless, flawless, flightless, frictionless, frivolous, fruitless, Gallus, garrulous, gladiolus, godless, graceless, groundless, guileless, guiltless, hairless, harmless, headless, heartless, homeless, hornless, humorless, incredulous, irregardless, issueless, jealous, jobless, keyless, lactobacillus, landless, lawless, leaderless, leafless, legless, libelous, lifeless, limbless, limitless, listless, loveless, luckless, malice, marvelous, meaningless, meatless, megalopolis, merciless, meticulous, metropolis, mindless, miraculous, motherless, motionless, nameless, nautilus, nebulous, necklace, necropolis, needless, odorless, overzealous, Oxalis, painless, palace, paperless, peerless, pendulous, penniless, perilous, pilotless, pitiless, pointless, polis, populace, populous, powerless, priceless, prothallus, purposeless, querulous, reckless, regardless, relentless, remorseless, restless, ridiculous, riskless, rootless, rudderless, ruthless, scandalous, scoreless, scrupulous, scurrilous, seamless, selfless, senseless, sexless, shameless, shiftless, skinless, sleeveless, smokeless, solace, soulless, speechless, spineless, spotless, stainless, stateless, stimulus, stylus, syphilis, tantalus, tasteless, thankless, thoughtless, ticketless, tieless, timeless, tireless, toothless, treeless, trellis, tremulous, unscrupulous, useless, valueless, victimless, voiceless, warrantless, weightless, windlass, windowless, wireless, witless, wordless, worthless, zealous.

Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

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Anagrams: Helpless

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

Words within the letters "e-e-h-l-l-p-s-s"

-2 letters: selles, shells, shleps, sleeps, speels, spells.

-3 letters: heels, hells, helps, peels, peles, seels, seeps, selle, sells, sheep, shell, shlep, sleep, speel, spell.

-4 letters: eels, ells, else, eses, heel, hell, help, lees, less, peel, pees, pehs, pele, seel, seep, sees, sell, sels, shes.

-5 letters: eel, ell, els, ess, hep, hes, lee, pee, peh, pes, see.

 Words containing the letters "e-e-h-l-l-p-s-s"
 

+2 letters: helplessly, hopelessly.

 

+3 letters: helpfulness, shapelessly.

 

+4 letters: helplessness, speechlessly.

 

+5 letters: helpfulnesses.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.

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INDEX

1. Definition
2. Synonyms
3. Crosswords
4. Usage: Modern
5. Usage: Commercial
6. Images: Photo Album
7. Images: Digital Art
8. Quotations: Familiar
9. Quotations: Historic
10. Quotations: Fiction
11. Quotations: Non-fiction
12. Quotations: Speeches
13. Usage Frequency
14. Expressions
15. Expressions: Internet
16. Translations: Modern
17. Translations: Ancient
18. Derivations
19. Rhymes
20. Anagrams
21. Bibliography


  

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