Dead in the water

Usage examples of powerless.

Bal had lent Barrie to us, and without a woman to aid and abet him, it seemed to me that he was powerless.

Grant was thinking that this was about the fiftieth urgent agendum that had been pressed upon him, each more crucial than the other, and he was becoming powerless to evaluate them, but he did acknowledge that he had two personal obligations which had to be considered seriously.

His hatred, like a powerless though furious wave, was broken against the strong ascendancy which Mercedes exercised over him.

In the manner of servants everywhere, the people of Bonheur had looked her over, noticed the attitude of their master and mistress toward her, tested her, and decided she was powerless.

As Boulter pointed out to me this morning, no government enjoys being shown up as powerless to protect its citizens.

They all of them watched the guard bugler depart, watching him inexpressively, looking at him inarticulately, seeing in him this fatality of which they were aware but powerless to influence, this that was more than men, an irresistible cosmic force of some kind that defied isolation.

The wizard, powerless against the combined talents of the Coven, struggled pitifully in his chair, trying to escape while the unthinkable happened.

Bestesbulzibar but realized he was powerless against the fiend, realized he had fallen to the dactyl and that he could not escape.

I was afraid of being discovered, and I did not know how far the German prince would have been pleased if he had found out that he had an indiscreet witness of the heavy and powerless demonstrations of his tenderness, which were a credit to neither of the actors, and which supplied me with ample food for thoughts upon the miseries of mankind.

With a jutting knuckle, Willie rapped sharply on the dorsum of the gun hand, and caught the gun as it fell from momentarily powerless fingers.

In his present series of arguments he labored to convince the country that if the Democrats elected the President they would still be practically powerless, and that apprehension of disturbance and upheaval from their success was unfounded.

He was powerless to do anything but follow behind her as she made her slow and painful progress down the gangplank, and the girl who had looked so much like Celia disappeared into the throng of tourists on the Embarcadero below.

By that time Euroclydon was on us, so that I would never have tried to put her about if we had had the best gear I ever handled, and our experiments only succeeded far enough to show that we were as utterly powerless as men could be.

Cyrus Harding knew this well, and sometimes he asked if some circumstance might not occur which they would be powerless to surmount.

Koronin had been raised to revere the empress, but among the highest class it was an open secret that the oligarchs controlled a powerless, toothless, heirless sovereign.