POWERLESSNESS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does powerlessness mean? 

• POWERLESSNESS (noun)
  The noun POWERLESSNESS has 1 sense:

1. the quality of lacking strength or power; being weak and feeble

  Familiarity information: POWERLESSNESS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• POWERLESSNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The quality of lacking strength or power; being weak and feeble

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

impotence; impotency; powerlessness

Hypernyms ("powerlessness" is a kind of...):

quality (an essential and distinguishing attribute of something or someone)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "powerlessness"):

helplessness; impuissance; weakness (powerlessness revealed by an inability to act)

unpersuasiveness (inability to persuade)

uninterestingness (inability to capture or hold one's interest)

voicelessness (having no voice in the management or control of affairs)

paper tiger (the nature of a person or organization that appears powerful but is actually powerless and ineffectual)

ineffectiveness; ineffectuality; ineffectualness (lacking the power to be effective)

Antonym:

power; powerfulness (possession of controlling influence)

Derivation:

powerless (lacking power)

 Context examples 

The girls never forgot that night, for no sleep came to them as they kept their watch, with that dreadful sense of powerlessness which comes to us in hours like those.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I had meant to be gay and careless, but the powerlessness of the strong man touched my heart to the quick: still I accosted him with what vivacity I could.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)