different between helpless vs failing
helpless
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)
- 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
- 1995, Bryan Adams, Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?
- Lacking help; powerless.
- Unable to act without help; needing help; feeble.
- Uncontrollable.
- a helpless urge
- (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.
- For, while they fly that gulf's devouring jawes,
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.
helpless From the web:
- what helpless means
- what hopeless mean
- what hopeless romantic means
- what hopelessness feels like
- what helpless means in spanish
- what helplessness leads to
- hopeless romantic means
- helpless what to do
failing
English
Pronunciation
- (US) IPA(key): /?fe?.l??/
- Rhymes: -e?l??
Verb
failing
- present participle of fail
Noun
failing (plural failings)
- weakness; defect
- His worst failing is his temper.
Translations
Preposition
failing
- if the preferred or prior option is not possible
- A large proportion of the females employed in other firms are said to have signified their intention of going on strike, failing a settlement.
Translations
failing From the web:
- what's failing in college
- what's failing grade
- what failing mean
- what's failing up
- what failing in tagalog
- what is failing forward
- what does failing mean
- what's a failing grade in high school
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