POWERLESS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does powerless mean? 

• POWERLESS (adjective)
  The adjective POWERLESS has 1 sense:

1. lacking power

  Familiarity information: POWERLESS used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• POWERLESS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Lacking power

Similar:

feeble; nerveless (lacking strength)

helpless; incapacitated (lacking in or deprived of strength or power)

low-powered (having little power to do work)

weak (not having authority, political strength, or governing power)

Also:

ineffective; ineffectual; uneffective (not producing an intended effect)

impotent (lacking power or ability)

weak (wanting in physical strength)

Attribute:

power; powerfulness (possession of controlling influence)

Antonym:

powerful (having great power or force or potency or effect)

Derivation:

powerlessness (the quality of lacking strength or power; being weak and feeble)

 Context examples 

When the terrible story of Lucy's death, and—and all that followed, was done, I lay back in my chair powerless.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I told him also how powerless European science would be to detect it.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Without them I was like a child in the dark, helpless and powerless.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In this particular, his influence upon her was equally powerless with mine.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

So situated, she was powerless to check Jo, who seemed possessed by a spirit of mischief, and talked away as volubly as the lady.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I was tormented by the contrast between my idea and my handiwork: in each case I had imagined something which I was quite powerless to realise.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I cannot see, hearing and feeling are leaving me, at this rate I shall soon cease to speak; yet all the time I shall be here, alive, active, and powerless.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He felt himself on the edge of an abyss, powerless to withstand the force that was drawing him over.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

She had suffered very much from cramp after dancing, and her first attempt to mount the bank brought on such a return of it as made her absolutely powerless—and in this state, and exceedingly terrified, she had been obliged to remain.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)