How to use helpless in a sentence
40 example sentences · adjective
Helpless means unable to defend oneself. Example: “The nondeployment of troops left the villagers helpless.”
Examples of helpless by meaning
adjectiveLacking help; powerless.
- A gaoler struck him, pushing him back in place in the hopeless, helpless line of prisoners.1966, James Workman, The Mad Emperor, Melbourne, Sydney: Scripts, page 41
adjectiveUncontrollable.
- a helpless urge
More sentences with helpless
- The nondeployment of troops left the villagers helpless.From the entry nondeployment
- If he thought she was such a helpless creature then let him get a taxi.2020, Michele Gorman, The Staycation, Orion, →ISBN. From the entry silly bean
- This is a great tie for a rope bunny who likes to feel helpless and completely bound.2017, Lord Morpheous [pseudonym], Bondage, Beverly, Massachusetts: Fair Winds Press, →ISBN, page 84. From the entry rope bunny
- He could not cook, drive a car, or use a typewriter, so he was helpless alone.2011, Paul Theroux, The Tao of Travel: Enlightenments from Lives on the Road, page 100. From the entry mateyness
- Whether it is better on the original arpeggione, I am helpless to say.2007 February 1, Bernard Holland, “Schubert Whispers, Grieg Booms”, in New York Times. From the entry arpeggione
- It is common to think of preborn human life as weak, dependent and helpless.1996, Eileen L. McDonagh, Breaking the Abortion Deadlock: From Choice to Consent, page 141. From the entry preborn
- I knew that I was being railroaded but I was helpless.1985 August 24, Robert Butler, “Sex More Punished Than Murder”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 7, page 5. From the entry railroad
- British agent double-oh-seven utterly helpless, paralyzed and unconscious after a minute wound from a hidden knife.”1985, Wade Davis, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Simon & Schuster, page 117. From the entry ichthyotoxicology
- Merry threw out helpless hands. ‘He’s gone!’ he said. ‘The death-wail.1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 214. From the entry death wail
- Studs was so helpless that Red Kelly had to take him home.1934, James T. Farrell, chapter 16, in The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan. From the entry paregoric
- Vain, helpless deathling! thou that seek'st for fame By hurling filth at an eternal name.1934, Algernon Sydney Logan, The Mirror of a Mind: The image of air, Saul, The last crusade, page 150. From the entry deathling
- A fire is the only thing that unstrings me entirely, I feel so helpless to combat it.1915, Clifton Johnson, Battleground Adventures. From the entry unstring
- I was more helpless and flew lightlier than a shred of thistledown among the stars.1911 October 26, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson, or, An Oxford Love Story, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company…. From the entry thistledown
- Else Xir helpless people would be godless ans stranded in the haunted dryland where the dead cities slept.2023, Aimee Ogden, “A Half-Remembered World”, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, vol. 145, no. 1-2, whole no. 768 (July/August…. From the entry xe
- Since they have no actions they are helpless and can't defend against CDG attacks from the rest of the party.2014 March 26, Loren Pechtel, “Most Powerful Cleric Spell ever.”, in rec.games.frp.dnd (Usenet), retrieved 10 Feb 2022. From the entry gangpile
- Humans, in stark contrast, are the most altricious species known, and helpless for a very long time after birth.2014, Jim Davies, Riveted, Macmillan, →ISBN, page 111. From the entry altricious
- Once the prey has been thoroughly stuck, the victorious dismalite gloatingly crawls out to further torment its helpless captive.2012, Richard Faulk, Gross America: Your Coast-to-Coast Guide to All Things Gross (ebook), Penguin Publishing Group, page 145. From the entry dismalite
- This time Cudicini was left helpless when Natcho stepped up to expertly curl the ball into the top corner.2011 November 3, Chris Bevan, “Rubin Kazan 1-0 Tottenham”, in BBC Sport. From the entry into
- The framers of the Constitution were being outframed by the president, and the Democrats in Congress felt helpless to stop it.2009, George Lakoff, The Political Mind. From the entry outframe
- At birth, newborn hoglets are pink, blind, and completely helpless.2008, Michael Leach, Hedgehog, page 8. From the entry hoglet
- The awsome dissonance of Psycho works independently even as it instantly evokes Norman Bates's stabbing knife and Marion Crane's helpless scream.2006, Jack Sullivan, “Psycho”, in Hitchcock’s Music, New Haven, Conn.; London: Yale University Press, →ISBN, page 244. From the entry tchotchke
- And so this killer—loath to touch a living body—was helpless.2006, Carol O'Connell, Find Me, →ISBN, page 277. From the entry death rattle
- I watched him charge against a helpless countryside.2002, Pamela Kaufman, The Book of Eleanor: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Three Rivers Press, →ISBN, page 240. From the entry berserk
- It is not the whiny, helpless, victimy kind of dependency.1999, John C. Friel, The 7 Worst Things Parents Can Do, →ISBN, page 41. From the entry victimy
- And this was the smooth-faced, frightened, helpless boy, whom those two thickwitted, bullying officers were carrying to Waco!1996, Eugene Cunningham, Triggernometry: a gallery of gunfighters, page 41. From the entry thickwitted
- The old, helpless, bedridden inmates lying often in their own filth awaiting death and burial in potters field, alone and unknown.1984 December 29, Raymond Latham, “The Plight of a Lover”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 25, page 5. From the entry potter's field
- His feet were pounding slowly onwards, unstoppably, as he stared at the ball gripped in his helpless hand.1982, Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything, page 150. From the entry unstoppably
- I, 79) says that the Sarmatian cataphracts were rather helpless if knocked off their horses, just like the mediaeval knights.1930, W[illiam] W[oodthorpe] Tarn, “Lecture II: Cavalry and Elephants”, in Hellenistic Military & Naval Developments, New York, N.Y.…. From the entry cataphract
- As for me, I felt wretched and helpless, in the darkness, surrounded with angry waves, whose noise deafened me.1918, Maxim Gorky, “My Fellow-traveller”, in J. [K.] M. Shirazi [et al.], transl., Creatures that Once were Men […], New York, N.Y.: Boni…. From the entry wretched
- No one knew enough to know how ignorant he was; how childlike; how helpless before the relative complexity of a school.1905, Henry Adams, chapter IV, in The Education of Henry Adams. From the entry southerner
- Helpless, the riders are borne into the Marsh, or a freshwater lake or even, so it is said in Grïmnørsland, the salt sea.2007, Cecilia Dart-Thornton, The Iron Tree. From the entry livers and lights
- The visitor in Man Facing South-east claims pure altruism; Rantes (Hugo Soto) wants to alleviate the suffering of the poor and helpless.2004, Carol Schwartz Ellis, Sean Redmond (editor), With Eyes Uplifted: Space Aliens as Sky Gods in Liquid Metal: The Science Fiction Film…. From the entry visitor
- Robinson, Lindfors, Carter, three uniforms and I watched helpless as Skeletor, dragging Speedy with him, inched out the gate, started backing down the hill.1996, S. J. Rozan, Concourse, Macmillan, →ISBN, page 265. From the entry uniform
- A barely audible groan welled up in the Captain's throat as the grinning Freedom Fighter circled around behind the helpless American Soldier.1991, Etienne, “In Enemy Hands”, in Drummer, number 151, archived from the original on 06 Feb 2026, page 32. From the entry jab
- Why is it that, despite having achieved previously undreamed-of miracles of progress, we seem more helpless in facing life than our less privileged ancestors were?1990, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow. From the entry undreamed-of
- Thomas Hardwick, a bachelor, a warhero and a scholar, had adopted a tiny, helpless infant he had found while fighting in the desert.1989, Aviva Hellman, To Touch a Dream, page 210. From the entry warhero
- The first was the holocausted goat, not worthy to live, who manifests in the modern complex as the helpless victim of pre-egoic consciousness.1987, Quadrant. From the entry holocausted
- There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge.1971, Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, New York: Popular Library, →ISBN, page 4. From the entry ether
Meaning of helpless
- adjective Unable to defend oneself.
- adjective Lacking help; powerless.
- adjective Unable to act without help; needing help; feeble.
Questions about helpless in a sentence
- How do you use helpless in a sentence?
- Helpless is used as an adjective. For example: “The nondeployment of troops left the villagers helpless.”
- What is a short sentence with helpless?
- “a helpless urge”
- What does helpless mean?
- Helpless means unable to defend oneself.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: helpless (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use helpless in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/helpless. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
