as in powerlessness
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Recent Examples of helplessness
No one knows why the processes of evolution recruited the lachrymal glands to convey this helplessness.
—
Big Think, 23 Sep. 2025
To claim helplessness is to embrace colonial subjugation, to accept that Puerto Rico can only obey.
—Israel Melendez Ayala, Time, 16 Sep. 2025
That helplessness amid an unrelenting, unforgiving illness.
—David Oliver, USA Today, 11 Sep. 2025
This can lead to a sense of helplessness and fear, hindering creativity and collaboration.
—Kotter, Forbes.com, 10 Sep. 2025
And ultimately, both films are about helplessness.
—Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 3 Sep. 2025
Before the service, Zehren acknowledged his own sense of helplessness in the moment of the attack, unable to save the lives of 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski.
—Andy Rose, CNN Money, 1 Sep. 2025
So then the remorse and the helplessness and the weight of everything that she's done in this whole journey that she's been on over this whole season just comes crashing down on her.
—EW.com, 26 Aug. 2025
My experience was essentially that of a passive observer, and that stoked an ever-mounting feeling of helplessness and horror at the individual experiences that flood social media.
—Hazlitt, 23 Oct. 2024
Big Think, 23 Sep. 2025
To claim helplessness is to embrace colonial subjugation, to accept that Puerto Rico can only obey.
—Israel Melendez Ayala, Time, 16 Sep. 2025
That helplessness amid an unrelenting, unforgiving illness.
—David Oliver, USA Today, 11 Sep. 2025
This can lead to a sense of helplessness and fear, hindering creativity and collaboration.
—Kotter, Forbes.com, 10 Sep. 2025
And ultimately, both films are about helplessness.
—Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 3 Sep. 2025
Before the service, Zehren acknowledged his own sense of helplessness in the moment of the attack, unable to save the lives of 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski.
—Andy Rose, CNN Money, 1 Sep. 2025
So then the remorse and the helplessness and the weight of everything that she's done in this whole journey that she's been on over this whole season just comes crashing down on her.
—EW.com, 26 Aug. 2025
My experience was essentially that of a passive observer, and that stoked an ever-mounting feeling of helplessness and horror at the individual experiences that flood social media.
—Hazlitt, 23 Oct. 2024
Recent Examples of Synonyms for helplessness
Noun
-
Koestler suggests that a stroke of good fortune, or a vision of the sublime, may evoke a sense of powerlessness — of being rapt, overwhelmed, enraptured, entranced — which overlaps with the helplessness of loss and defeat, and which evokes a similar surrender.—
Big Think,
Big Think,
23 Sep. 2025
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Here are some steps to prevent your team from succumbing to the sense of powerlessness associated with the Great Lock-In trend.—
Juliette Han,
Forbes.com,
15 Sep. 2025
Noun
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The email refers to a 2021 incident that saw the information of over 21 million users of the parking app leaked through a vulnerability within third-party software.—
James Peckham,
PC Magazine,
6 Oct. 2025
-
And the love and the trust then allow for vulnerability.—
Brian Anthony Hernandez,
PEOPLE,
5 Oct. 2025
Noun
-
While pregnancy at any age sparks a host of rapid breast changes that may temporarily up your cancer risk in the few years immediately following, facing those fluctuations at age 35-plus—when your baseline susceptibility is higher simply because of age—just further raises that risk.—
Erica Sloan,
SELF,
1 Oct. 2025
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Older adults who cycle regularly are likely a healthier subgroup, and cycling may also serve as a marker of favorable genetics, with risk lowest among those without genetic susceptibility to dementia, Verghese said.—
Kristen Rogers,
CNN Money,
20 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Helplessness.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/helplessness. Accessed 8 Oct. 2025.
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