different between helpless vs disabled

English

Etymology

From Middle English helples, from Old English *helpl?as (“helpless”) from Proto-Germanic *help?lausaz, equivalent to help +? -less. Compare Dutch hulpeloos (“helpless”), German hilflos (“helpless”), Swedish hjälplös (“helpless”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?h?lpl?s/
• Hyphenation: help?less

Adjective

helpless (comparative more helpless, superlative most helpless)

1. Unable to defend oneself.
   • 1995, Bryan Adams, Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?

     Then when you find yourself lyin' helpless in her arms

     You know you really love a woman

2. Lacking help; powerless.
3. Unable to act without help; needing help; feeble.
4. Uncontrollable.

   a helpless urge

5. (obsolete) From which there is no possibility of being saved.

   • For, while they fly that gulf's devouring jawes,
     They on the rock are rent and sunck in helplesse wawes.

Derived terms

• helplessly
• helplessness

Translations

Further reading

• helpless in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• helpless in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

English

Etymology

From disable +? -ed.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): [d?s?e?b??d]

Adjective

disabled (comparative more disabled, superlative most disabled)

1. Made incapable of use or action.
   • 1911, "From Brittania Lodge, No. 361", Railway Carmen's Journal, Vol. 16, No. 3, March 1911, page 129:

     In the car department we would repair cars that were disabled and placed in bad order by a bunch of scalies taking the place of striking switchmen, engineers, Firemen, etc.

2. Having a disability.
3. (law) Legally disqualified.

Synonyms

• incapacitated
• indisposed
• invalid

Antonyms

• enabled

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

disabled (usually uncountable, plural disableds)

1. One who is disabled. (often used collectively as the disabled, but sometimes also singular)

Translations

Verb

disabled

1. simple past tense and past participle of disable