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help or strength; unable to help or defend one's self; needing help; feeble; weak; as, a helpless infant. How shall I then your helpless fame defend Pope.

Helpless; without aid. Milton.

Nursers, -- a term applied to those birds whose young are hatched in a very immature and helpless condition, so as to require the care of their parents for some time; -- opposed to præcoces.

, players stationed behind those in the front line. -- To be or lie on one's back, to be helpless. -- To put, or get, one's back up, to assume an attitude of obstinate resistance (from the action of a cat when attacked.). [Colloq.] -- To see the back of, to get rid of. -- To turn the back, to go away; to flee. -- T…

Having two feet; two-footed. By which the man, when heavenly life was ceased, Became a helpless, naked, biped beast. Byrom.

with labor or difficulty; that which is grievous, wearisome, or oppressive. Deaf, giddy, helpless, left alone, To all my friends a burden grown. Swift.

Without craft or cunning. Helpless, craftless, and innocent people. Jer. Taylor.

without dismay. Macaulay. Thou with a tiger spring dost leap upon thy prey, And tear his helpless breast, o'erwhelmed with wild dismay. Mrs. Barbauld.

To hold out or reach forth, as the arm or hand. His helpless hand extend. Dryden.

Destitute; helpless; in pitiful plight; wretched; miserable; almost hopeless; desperate. For here forlorn and lost I tread. Goldsmith. The condition of the besieged in the mean time was forlorn in the extreme. Prescott. She cherished the forlorn hope that he was still living. Thomson. A forlorn hope Etym: [D. verloren…

Inability; helplessness. [R.] Latimer. Logical impossibility, a condition or statement involving contradiction or absurdity; as, that a thing can be and not be at the same time. See Principle of Contradiction, under Contradiction.

Incapable of being assisted; helpless. [R.] Shak.

being indigent; want of estate, or means of comfortable subsistence; penury; poverty; as, helpless, indigence. Cowper.

ic] The lion being dead, even hares insult. Daniel. An unwillingness to insult over their helpless fatuity. Landor.

; to be lamented; sorrowful; pitiable; as, a lamentable misfortune, or error. "Lamentable helplessness." Burke.

worship. Tylor. Gitche Manito the mighty, The Great Spirit, the creator, Smiled upon his helpless children! Longfellow. Mitche Manito the mighty, He the dreadful Spirit of Evil, As a serpent was depicted. Longfellow.

Compassionate treatment of the unfortunate and helpless; sometimes, favor, beneficence. Luke x. 37.

defer; to postpone; to delay; as, to procrastinate repentance. Dr. H. More. Hopeless and helpless Ægeon wend, But to procrastinate his lifeless end. Shak.

uctance to obey the summons. Sir W. Scott. Bear witness, Heaven, with what reluctancy Her helpless innocence I doom to die. Dryden.

Weak; helpless; frail. [Obs.] After long storms . . . With which my silly bark was tossed sore. Spenser. The silly buckets on the deck. Coleridge.