Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Defenseless   Listen
adjective
Defenseless  adj.  
1.
Destitute of defense; unprepared to resist attack; unable to oppose; unprotected. (Also spelled defenceless)
2.
Unarmed; used of persons or the military. Antonym: armed.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Defenseless" Quotes from Famous Books



... a sense of humor by requiring their soldiers to march on parade with the goose step; and the French prove they have none at all by incasing the defenseless legs of their soldiers in those foolish red-flannel pants that are manufactured in such profusion up ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... You are saying things you don't mean. You are the last man in the world to take advantage of a girl's defenseless position and her love for you to gratify your own selfish desires and perhaps wreck ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... your irresponsible practical joking and settle down. Some hard work wouldn't hurt you even if you did inherit a fortune. I don't mind so much when you pull these stunts on me, but when I think of how you practically drowned those poor, defenseless Earth-creatures...." ...
— Stairway to the Stars • Larry Shaw

... chap," he remarked, as he looked down upon the brute. "But, then, it served you right. You attacked the innocent and defenseless, little thinking that such swift vengeance was so near. You were little different, however, from certain two-legged brutes who tried the same game to their own sorrow. You did me a great favor to-day, though, and it's ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody

... and that I was drifting into the safe harbor of the realms of truth. I felt as if everybody must believe him, for he clung to the truth, and I wondered how Mr. Hutchinson could so lie about a poor defenseless girl like me. ...
— From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or Struggles for Freedom • Lucy A. Delaney

... of theology than we intended; and we need not say how much the monstrous inequalities attributed to the combatants affect our estimate of the results of the conflict. The state of man is what it is, because the defenseless Adam and Eve of Milton's imagination yielded to the nearly all-powerful Satan whom he has delineated. Milton has in some sense invented this difficulty; for in the book of Genesis there is no such inequality. The serpent ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... for two, who cannot recover his self-possession and master the runaway brute within him, and who loses his head on the edge of the precipice over which she is going to fall, is as contemptible as any man who breaks open a lock, or as any rascal on the look-out for a house left defenseless and without protection, or for some easy and profitable stroke of business, or as that thief whose various exploits you ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... and children to flee to the mountains, taking with them the dogs, pigs, chickens, and valuable household effects. However, Bontoc pueblo, because of her strength, is not so evacuated — she expects no enemy strong enough to burst through and reach the defenseless. ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... the expurgated translations offered to him at all convey the point. Decidedly Hira Singh's was the speech of the evening, and the clamour might have continued to the dawn had it not been broken by the noise of a shot without that sent every man feeling at his defenseless left side. Then there was a scuffle and a ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling

... in horrible torture, amidst robbers and assassins.(396) Others, more mercifully dealt with, were shot down in cold blood, as, unarmed and helpless, they fell upon their knees in prayer. Hundreds of aged men, defenseless women, and innocent children were left dead upon the earth at their place of meeting. In traversing the mountainside or the forest, where they had been accustomed to assemble, it was not unusual to find "at every four paces, dead bodies dotting the sward, and corpses hanging ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... but, pressed by those behind, they swept aside resistance, and bore back the Spaniards to the edge of the canal. Cortez and his companions plunged in and swam across. Alvarado stood on the brink, hesitating. Unhorsed and defenseless, he could not make his way across the gap, which was now crowded with the canoes of the enemy. He set his strong lance on the bottom of the canal and, using it as a leaping pole, sprang across. The feat was an extraordinary one, ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... often joined Sri Yukteswar in exhaustive criticism of others. Wise like the guru! Models of flawless discrimination! But he who takes the offensive must not be defenseless. The same carping students fled precipitantly as soon as Master publicly unloosed in their direction a few shafts from ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... General Howe; and insisted that, should the troops then embarked at that place, instead of proceeding to the Delaware, make a sudden movement up the Hudson, it would be in their power, should Albany be left defenseless, to destroy the valuable arsenal which had been there erected, and the military stores captured with Burgoyne, which had been chiefly deposited ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... robbing birds' nests are forms of cruelty of which young children are often guilty before they are old enough to reflect that their sport is purchased at the cost of frightful pain to these poor innocent and defenseless creatures. The simple fact that we are strong and they are weak ought to make evident, to anyone capable of the least reflection, how mean a thing it is to take advantage of our superior strength and knowledge to inflict pain on one of these ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... of conversation while Mrs. Stowe was in Boston was this proposed law, and when she arrived in Brunswick her soul was all on fire with indignation at this new indignity and wrong about to be inflicted by the slave-power on the innocent and defenseless. ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... and launched more oaths at his defenseless head than Toby had ever heard in his life. He was angry that the boy had not been on hand to help him, and also that he had been obliged to hunt ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis

... scores for the Lusitania, to say nothing of the many more ships with defenseless men and women that have been sunk since the beginning of the war," added McClure seriously. Then turning to Jack Hammond he added: "I guess you are the good-luck chap. We got both those Boche boats since I called you into the turret as my aide. Don't forget, ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll

... as if in expectation of some danger. With their instinctive caution, they separated, and partially protecting themselves behind the trees, prepared to receive what they supposed to be their enemies. A noticeable fact did not escape the eyes of the Riflemen. The captive, a weak, defenseless girl, was not allowed to screen herself, as did her captors, but was compelled by them to stand out in full view, as an additional safeguard ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis

... examples of such universal grief, but only at the death of great leaders whose authority and importance intensified the general mourning for their loss. Thus, Troy without Hector was defenseless. When Gaston de Foix, Duke de Nemours, surnamed the Thunderbolt of Italy, died at the age of twenty-three after the victory of Ravenna, the French transalpine conquests were endangered. The bullet which struck Turenne ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux

... girls well knew that there were larger and more dangerous animals in the forests. There were bears prowling somewhere in those dim shadowy woods, eating the young buds and leaves, and capturing such defenseless birds and rabbits as they could. Once or twice they heard some heavy creature crashing through the underbrush, and looked at each other with startled eyes; but no harm came near them, and by the middle of the afternoon they reached the first house of ...
— A Little Maid of Old Maine • Alice Turner Curtis

... exhibited upon his features some traces of respect and sorrow for fallen royalty. It was a mortal offense. The brutal multitude would not endure a look even of sympathy for the descendant of a hundred kings. They rushed upon the defenseless clergyman, and would have killed him instantly had not Barnave most energetically interfered. "Frenchmen!" he shouted, from the carriage windows, "will you, a nation of brave men, become a people of murderers!" Barnave was a young man of much nobleness of character. ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... enjoyment of it by their equals, not their superiors, in the benefits of government; I find that the government which conferred the right of citizenship is powerless, or indisposed, to force respect for its own enactments; I find that these people, left to the mercy of their enemies, alone and defenseless, and without judicious leadership, are urged to preserve themselves loyal to the men and to the party which have shown themselves unable to extend to them substantial protection; I find that these people, alone in their struggles of doubt and of ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... it was answered from the Rose by a column of smoke, and the eighteen-pound ball crashed through the bottom of the defenseless Spaniard. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... discouragements, the entire party sank down exhausted upon the snow. The entire party? No! There was one man who never ceased to work. When a fire had been kindled, and nearly every one had given up, this one man, unaided, continued to strive to erect some sort of shelter to protect the defenseless women and children. Planting large pine boughs in the snow, he banked up the snow on either side of them so as to form a wall. Hour after hour, in the darkness and raging storm, he toiled on alone, building the sheltering breastwork which was to ward off death from ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan

... replied Dolores, shuddering slightly at sight of him. The giant was streaked and splashed with blood; for in those moments when he stood defenseless before casting his infernal machine, a dozen cutlases and knives had ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... colonies; a declaration of war by a few people, without military stores, without wealth, without strength, against the most powerful kingdom on the earth; a declaration of war made when the British navy, at that day the mistress of every sea, was hovering along the coast of America, looking after defenseless towns and villages to ravage and destroy. It was made when thousands of English soldiers were upon our soil, and when the principal cities of America were, in the substantial possession of the enemy. And so, I say, all things considered, ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll

... lying there. He had the two-handled knife, with which he was about to try his skill on a hide that was stretched over the beam of the wooden horse, when Birt glanced up and came hastily to the rescue. Rufe was disposed to further investigate the appliances of the tanyard left defenseless at his mercy, but at last Birt prevailed on him to go home and play with Tennessee, and was glad enough to see his tow-head, with his old hat perched precariously on it, bobbing up and down among the low bushes, as he wended his way along the ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)

... me in the lonelier forest wilds when I was out a-hunting; remembered how at first I was afraid of him; how once I would have shot him in a fit of boyish race antipathy and sudden fright had he not flung away his firelock and stood before me defenseless. ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... the inhuman policy of Weyler not less than four hundred thousand self-supporting, simple, peaceable, defenseless country people were driven from their homes in the agricultural portions of the Spanish provinces to the cities, and imprisoned upon the barren waste outside the residence portions of these cities and within the lines of intrenchment established a little way beyond. Their humble homes were burned, ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... were placed in the captured Russian camp; the others made themselves as comfortable as they could around huge fires. The poor prisoners had little or nothing. The ragged French were at least better clothed than they were in the morning. The defenseless had arms and the whole army had been fed. There was wine, too; the Russian commissariat was a liberal one. There was much laughter and jovialness in the camps that night. Of course, the guard and the other veterans expected nothing else, but to the youngsters the brilliant ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... fifty years in vicious idleness, and you will have some idea of what the Indians are. Reckless, revengeful, fiendishly cruel, they rob and murder, not the cowboys, who can take care of themselves, but the defenseless, lone settlers on the plains. As for the soldiers, an Indian chief once asked Sheridan for a cannon. "What! Do you want to kill my soldiers with it?" asked the general. "No," replied the chief, "want to kill the cowboy; kill soldier with ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... them, against which French valor—ill directed as it was—proved futile, and that splendid array of 480,000 men had to ground their arms, surrender their colors, and, to their own unspeakable shame and humiliation, become captive to their foes, leaving their beloved France defenseless. But the loss of their army, no more than their thronging foes, dismayed France. The heart of the nation was stirred, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic, from the Channel to the blue Mediterranean, France rose as one man. They saw the entire military force of Germany encamped on their ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... mountainside I walk on; this is a bosom, an embrace, in its softness. I tread gently, for I do not wish to stamp or weigh it down, and I marvel: a mountain so tender and defenseless, indulgent like a mother. To think of an ant walking on this! Here and there lie stones, half-covered with moss, not because they have fallen there, but because this is their home, and they have lived here long. ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun

... than Roman sternness? Again, in the trial of the inspectors of election, why were both judge and jurymen so merciful? No verdict of guilty was ordered, and the council of twelve who had seen fit to punish Miss Anthony by a fine of $100 and costs, merely mulcted in the modest sum of $25, each defenseless defendant sinning against light. Was it that they considered in their manly clemency the fact that women have superior facilities for earning money, or did they give heed to the old, old excuse, "The woman tempted ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... be objected that the blockading of even a defenseless coast would cost the blockading country a good deal of money, by reason of the loss of trade with that country. True; but war is always expensive, and the blockade would be very much more expensive to the blockaded country; and though ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske

... upon the riches of the few but the happiness of the many that a nation's greatness depends. Moreover no state can build permanently or surely by denying to a half or a third of those governed any voice whatever in the government. If the Negro was ignorant, he was also economically defenseless; and it is neither just nor wise to deny to any man, however humble, any real power for his legal protection. If these principles hold—and we think they are in line with enlightened conceptions of society—the prosperity of the New South was by no means as genuine ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... publicly accused by the scoundrel Gauthier, I suppose many men said, "What a pity that so fair a woman should be so foul!" Others said gravely, "This matter ought to be judicially examined." Gismond was the only man who realised that a defenseless orphan was insulted, and the words were hardly out of Gauthier's mouth when he received "the fist's reply to the filth." The lovers walked away from the "shouting multitude," the fickle, cowardly, contemptible public, who did not dare to ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... enterprise; and in order to retain the duke in Lombardy, they requested the Venetians to press him with their utmost strength. But they also were alarmed, the marquis of Mantua having abandoned them and gone over to the duke; and thus, finding themselves almost defenseless, they replied, "that instead of increasing their responsibilities, they should be unable to perform their part in the war, unless the Count Francesco were sent to them to take the command of the army, and with the special understanding that he should engage to cross ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli

... forest had retired from this beautiful country their places would have been supplied by persons whose characters would be softened by the appellation of savage—penitentiary outcasts and murderers? Who could believe that a human being could be so depraved as to fall upon a defenseless and unoffending traveler and murder him under the pretence of sheltering him from the storm and giving him a hearty welcome at his table? Who could believe that even devils in human shape could cut the throats of two traveling strangers to obtain two watches, $80 and a pair of saddle-bags? I shudder ...
— Narrative of Richard Lee Mason in the Pioneer West, 1819 • Richard Lee Mason

... chief heard this he did not put on his war paint and lead his warriors against the defenseless French who had so long dealt falsely with him. He sat alone for a long time, thinking. The next day he sent a letter to Major Gladwin saying that he was now ready to bury the hatchet, and begging the ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney

... making for the water the instant they breathed the outer air as if their very lives depended on it, and they did—for during the hours of daylight there were herons, an ever-present host of hawks, and other predaceous birds waiting for the eggs to hatch and eager to feast on the defenseless horde the instant the little creatures pushed their heads through the crumbling sand and while they scrambled frantically toward the water and safety. At night the four-footed animals from miles around gathered on the bars to ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... history and not to family memoirs. Suffice it to say, that this siege was disastrous to the inhabitants, who had to suffer hunger and privations of every kind. Life at Orenbourg became insupportable. The decision of fate was awaited with anguish. Food was scarce; bombshells fell upon the defenseless houses of citizens. The attacks of Pougatcheff made very little excitement. I was dying of ennui. I had promised Accoulina that I would correspond with her, but communication was cut off, and I could not send or receive a letter ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin

... end of the island tried to escape in their boats, but they were soon overtaken and made prisoners, like the others. Nor was there any attempt to resist the foe, for the sharp spears and pikes and swords of the invaders terrified the hearts of the defenseless people of Pingaree, whose sole ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum

... see the refinement and beauty she possessed. Could it be possible that this young and beautiful girl had been a chattel, with no power to protect herself from the highest insults that lawless brutality could inflict upon innocent and defenseless womanhood? Could he ever again glory in his American citizenship, when any white man, no matter how coarse, cruel, or brutal, could buy or sell her for the basest purposes? Was it not true that the cause of a hapless people ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... one point of view in which this case seems to merit your most serious attention. The real prosecutor is the master of the greatest empire the world ever saw; the defendant is a defenseless, proscribed exile. I consider this case, therefore, as the first of a long series of conflicts between the greatest power in the world and the only Free Press remaining in Europe. Gentlemen, this distinction of the English Press is new—it is a proud and melancholy ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... a poor defenseless girl," returned a soft tremulous female voice. "And God will never forgive you! Go your way, Deerslayer, and let ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... to the court of Xodar, Jeddak of the First Born, and to him who now rules those of the thern nation that have renounced their religion; and from each and all I heard the same story of unspeakable cruelties and atrocities perpetrated upon the poor defenseless victims of their religion by ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... to confirm my opinion of its significance. The sight repaid all my watchings thrice over, and even now I feel my heart growing warm at the recollection of it. Strange thoughtlessness, is it not, which allows mothers capable of such passionate devotion, tiny, defenseless things, to be slaughtered by the million for the enhancement of ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... She rose from the piano-stool. Her essence of virginal femininity, its pure and cloistered and white-camisoled odor, bespelled Carl to fainting timidity. And while he was thus defenseless the dentist thrust: ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... before. [6] Then the barbarians entered the Peloponnesus, but were soon driven out by Stilicho, a German chieftain who had risen to the command of the army of Honorius. Alaric gave up Greece only to invade Italy. Before long the Goths crossed the Julian Alps and entered the rich and defenseless valley of the Po. To meet the crisis the legions were hastily called in, even from the distant frontiers. Stilicho formed them into a powerful army, beat back the enemy, and captured the Visigothic ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... been so common for a year or two as he was formerly, for the reason that the Robins died by thousands of starvation, owing to the freezing of their food supply in Tennessee during the protracted cold weather in the winter of 1895. It is indeed sad that this good Samaritan among birds should be defenseless against the severity of Nature, the common mother of us all. Nevertheless the return of the birds, in myriads or in single pairs, will be welcomed more and more, year by year, as intelligent love and appreciation of them shall possess ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... this way, as they are pounced upon as soon as they enter the world by every old "granny" and negro "mammy" in the neighborhood, and plied with abominable concoctions that would be productive of homicide if we were to attempt forcibly to administer them to grown men, and whose only effect on the defenseless little sufferer is to cause colic and indigestion. Many times has the writer seen a wee, tiny little mortal, who was too young and weak to even protest, bundled up with a mountain of flannels in the hottest weather of July and August. True to the superstition that ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris

... could easily fancy himself in danger in this vast fenceless and defenseless space. Enormous herds were visible for miles in every direction, bulls roamed here and there, bellowing moodily, cattle and horses by hundreds waded and grazed in the shallow swamps across which the dyked path led. All the brilliant day "Mt. ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... a sacrifice to their enemies' wrath. The slain on that day were many, and the after-cruelty to prisoners great; they being carried into and kept for a long time in the Gray-friars church yard of Edinburgh, exposed, defenseless, night and day, to tempests of all kinds. By this inhuman usage (with design to wear out the saints of the Most High), together with the insinuations and persuasions of some of the indulgence favorers, their ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery

... pursue the course which interest dictates should not be forgotten; the extent of our seacoast; the exposed situation of our seaport towns, lying within a few hours' sail of the British naval depot in the neighborhood of Maine; the disastrous consequences of our defenseless situation during the last war; the great and increasing maritime interests which we have at stake without one single point where a ship, if dependent upon the United States fortifications, would be safe from the attacks of a frigate—these ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson

... mouth of the tunnel. Sometimes enemies—other species of ants—draw near, and then the working white ants, being but poor, defenseless creatures, blind and unarmed, would be in danger of death were not their big fighting comrades on guard. The soldiers rush to the rescue and, with a few sweeps of their scythe-like jaws, clear the field. While the attacking party is carrying off its dead, ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey

... certain sorrows, and very uncertain comforts? and what is there, dear sir, to pay one for the heart-aches, what compensation for the many tender and disquieting apprehensions of a suffering and defenseless mother who brings ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... them much for wanting to get rid of these, even if they did have to commit a sort of highway robbery upon defenseless prisoners to do so. To be a traitor in arms was bad certainly, but one never appreciated the entire magnitude of the crime until he saw a Rebel wearing a calico or a pine-leaf hat. Then one felt as if it would be a great mistake to ever ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... as it later became incredulous, of official reports of victories. The destruction of New Brunswick became known despite official denials, and colossal riots broke out among the inhabitants of the larger cities, intent upon escape from defenseless towns.... Orders were actually issued withdrawing a quarter of a million men from the front-line reserve, with artillery in proportion to their force." (Strategic Lessons of the War of 1941-43.—U. S. ...
— Morale - A Story of the War of 1941-43 • Murray Leinster

... of course, the indifference of the others as to what befell the defenseless prisoner. The next Indian who advanced upon him with drawn knife would not be so likely to find himself disputed by another, anxious to perform the same job. It seemed certain that no one would interfere in the ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne

... ships closed in on the two German cruisers, and poured broadside after broadside into the almost defenseless hulls. ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake

... face is the corpus delicti. Did you, taking advantage of the unconscious and hence defenseless condition of my client, that is, of Mr. Martin Dyke, lean over him and ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... the whole social organization of the vice-kingdom—in which plantations were destroyed, and villages and cities sacked and burned, and the most unheard-of cruelties practiced by one party or the other on the defenseless, until the final triumph of the Creole, or white troops, in the time of the viceroy, Apaduer, over the insurgents, composed chiefly of Indians and those of ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... the thugs kicked him as he lay defenseless, and then, spying a row of coat-hooks in an inner hallway, with fiendish ingenuity directed the others who had joined him. They strung Locke up by his thumbs so that he hung, half suspended, with his ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey

... for a while doing nothing except realizing happiness of the present and of the future. He gazed at the green spread of forest boughs, and saw in pleased anticipation their red and gold tints of autumn; also in pleased anticipation their snowy and icy mail of winter, and himself, the unmailed, defenseless human creature, housed and sheltered, sitting before his own fire. This last happy outlook aroused him. If all this was to be, he must be up and doing. He got up, entered the house, and examined ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... the Marne the Prussians were pressing northward, venting their rage on the defenseless inhabitants, killing many such and carrying others away with them. It was desperate business that these brutal Prussians were engaged in. Finding themselves unable to whip the Allied soldiers, they sought to terrorize old men, women ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce

... and being. Not even in succeeding, we must remember; and this is perhaps the hardest part of our lesson. It is one thing to bear with serenity those blows of fortune against which we are obviously defenseless; it is another thing, when there seems a chance for averting the disaster, when our whole heart and soul are thrown into that effort, to await the outcome with tranquility, to bear failure without complaint. The "might have been's" and the "perhaps may yet be's" are the greatest disturbers ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... The whole nation arouses itself at news of an Indian assault upon some defenseless frontier settlement, and the general government sends troops to succor and to punish. But who takes note of the worse than Indian massacres going on daily and nightly in the heart of our great cities? Who hunts down and punishes the human wolves in our midst whose mouths ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur

... been limited in its protecting force before 1890. It forbade a denial of the right to vote by any State. The Supreme Court easily determined that no violation could occur when a hostile mob excluded negroes from the polls. It had been settled before 1890 that the negro was defenseless against personal discrimination. It remained to be seen whether he could be disfranchised by law and yet have no redress. Not till the South found some of its people appealing for the negro vote in the crisis ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... the first onset had paused a moment, and then seeing that all around him were employed in the deadly strife, he had sought, with hellish vengeance, to complete the baffled work of revenge. Raising a shout of triumph, he sprang toward the defenseless Cora, sending his keen axe as the dreadful precursor of his approach. The tomahawk grazed her shoulder, and cutting the withes which bound her to the tree, left the maiden at liberty to fly. She eluded the grasp of the savage, and reckless ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... bee's. A month ago, in June, having finished its mess of honey, it wove its silken sheath for a bedchamber wherein to take the long sleep which is the prelude to the metamorphosis. Bulging with fat, it is a rich and defenseless morsel for whoever is able to reach it. Then, in spite of apparently insurmountable obstacles, the mortar wall and the tent without an opening, the flesh-eating larvae appeared in the secret retreat and are now glutting themselves on the sleeper. Three different species take part in the carnage, ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... of flowers moves through the streets. Abraham Lincoln has done his work. He is on his journey back to the scenes of his childhood! The boy who defended the turtles, the man who stretched out his arm over the defenseless Indian in the Black Hawk War, and who freed the slave; the man of whom no one ever asked pity in vain—he is going back to the prairies, to sleep his ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth

... very pleasant afternoon at the ranchhouse, in spite of Mrs. Chadron's uneasiness on account of their defenseless state. At that season Chadron and his neighbors could not draw very heavily on their scattered forces following the divided herds spread out over the vast territory for the ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... expurgated[14] translations offered to him at all convey the point. Decidedly the native officer's was the speech of the evening, and the clamor might have continued to the dawn had it not been broken by the noise of a shot without that sent every man feeling at his defenseless left side. It is notable that Dirkovitch "reached back," after the American fashion—a gesture that set the captain of the Lushkar team wondering how Cossack officers were armed at mess. Then there was a scuffle, ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... sharp-sightedness, that are usually found only among birds. The consistency between the construction of their bodies and their mode of life is a beautiful example of fitness; only by extraordinary quickness of movement and sagacity could the little defenseless plant-eaters maintain the struggle for existence in the barren steppes and deserts. The formation of the bodies of the different members of the family varies according to their needs. The jerboa is the largest member of the family. Very little is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various

... the defenseless, as in turning the guns on the city, was not in keeping with the nature of David Farragut as revealed in history. Power combined with gentleness were the marked traits of his character. This gentleness had its finest reflex in his delicate attentions ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott

... They took the part of the weak and the oppressed against the tyrannical and the strong in the rustic contentions that they witnessed; they interposed to help the feeble, to relieve those who were in want, and to protect the defenseless. They hunted wild beasts, they fought against robbers, they rescued and saved the lost. For amusements, they practiced running, wrestling, racing, throwing javelins and spears, and other athletic feats and accomplishments—in every thing excelling all their competitors, and becoming ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... his shell and remained naked and defenseless. A vulture happened to see him, and being hungry, broke the tortoise's back with a blow of his beak and devoured it. The moral is, that M. Fouquet should take very good ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... filled her with inexpressible horror. For a moment she stood motionless in the center of that leering circle, her eyes wide, her face white as death,—a slight figure, trying to hard to stand straight, crushed and defenseless, only her eyes pleading in last appeal. Instinctively ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... waters decked with sea-foam, Into fires and boiling waters, Into everlasting torment. Then the hero, Lemminkainen, Sang the foemen with their broadswords? Sang the heroes with their weapons, Sang the eldest, sang the youngest, Sang the middle-aged, enchanted; Only one he left his senses, He a poor, defenseless shepherd, Old and sightless, halt and wretched, And the old man's name was Nasshut. Spake the miserable shepherd: "Thou hast old and young enchanted, Thou hast banished all our heroes, Why hast spared this wretched shepherd?" This is Lemminkainen's answer: "Therefore have I ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... ship full of holes at their leisure from the shore. But Garibaldi was a sailor, and he had the true pilot's intuition for finding the channel. Suddenly, as the pursuing ships rounded a bend, from the height of a commanding precipice a deadly stream of shot and shell was poured down through the defenseless decks. And the gunners on the ships could not elevate their cannon to get the range. Garibaldi had taken his best cannon from his ship and masked this battery on shore. For two months he had worked to lure the enemy to their ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... on their adventure, Ned and Gerald had exacted a solemn oath, from each of the men who were to take part in it, that on no account would he lift his hand against a defenseless person; and also that he spare everybody who surrendered. The negroes were greatly loath to take this promise, and had Ned urged them to do so purely for the sake of humanity, the oath would unquestionably have been refused; for in ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty

... strangely assorted trio reached the apartment in which the Sepoy had but a short time before disported himself, so to speak, with such waspish reprisal, and delivered such a farrago of ridicule and cynicism upon the defenseless head of the silent figure bound ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... worked as well as before and the man pushed the colonel back into the tent. The latter dragged the man in after him and stepped hurriedly aside, just as Chester brought the chair down upon the Austrian's defenseless head with all his power. The man dropped like ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes

... curiously grim mood. He hated the subterfuge he had practised, and there was something very repugnant in this stealthy tracking down of his man, but the chase was nearly over and he meant to finish it. Defenseless merchant seamen could not be allowed to suffer ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss

... it; for just at that very second there was a loud howl, so close at hand that Step Hen was impelled to look over his shoulder, under the impression that the wolf pack was even then about to overwhelm him while he bent down, almost defenseless, above the pile of ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... for the marvel? Is there no transition between the Elberfeld stallions and the horses which we have known until this day? It is not easy to answer these questions, for it is only since yesterday that the intellectual powers of our defenseless brothers have been subjected to strictly scientific experiments. We have, it is true more than one collection of anecdotes in which the intelligence of animals is lauded to the skies; but we cannot rely upon these ill-authenticated ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck

... of seeking out the nests of these dinosaurs, gnawing through the shells of their eggs, and thus destroying the young. The appearance, or evolution, of any egg-destroying animals, whether reptiles or mammals, which could attack this great race at such a defenseless point would be rapidly followed by its extinction. We must accordingly be on the alert for all possible theories of extinction; and these theories themselves will fall under the universal principle of the survival of the fittest until we ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew

... not the assassin appear to rush forth suddenly from his lurking place? Shall not the other appear seized with horror? Shall he not cry out, beg for his life, or fly to save it? Shall I not see the assassin dealing the deadly blow, and the defenseless wretch falling dead at his feet? Shall I not picture vividly in my mind the blood gushing from his wounds, his ghastly face, his groans, and the last gasp ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser

... smooth and oily. To Hal it really looked as though this fellow respected gameness enough not to take it out on a defenseless enemy. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock

... Nevian, vomiting from its hollow front a solid cylinder of annihilation. Once more the screens of the Nevian flared into brilliance, once more the red cloud of destruction was flung abroad. But these vessels were not entirely defenseless. Their iron-driven ultra-generators threw out screens of the Nevians' own formulae, screens of prodigious power to which the energies of the amphibians clung and at which they clawed and tore in baffled, wildly coruscant displays of power unthinkable. For minutes the furious conflict ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith

... kind of a snake with a hat-pin; you have to stamp on its head. But I rather believe it will be some time before Mr. Craig will again make the mistake of insulting a woman because she appears to be defenseless." Elsa's chin was in the air. The choking sensation in her throat began to subside. "The deadly hat-pin; can't you see the story in the newspapers? Well, I for one am not afraid to use it. You know and the purser knows what happened on the boat to Mandalay. ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... undertook to prevent this in their usual fashion. Irregular troops were sent into Christian Bulgaria with orders to kill all they met. It was an order to the Mohammedan taste. The defenseless villages of Bulgaria were entered and their inhabitants slaughtered in cold blood, till thousands of men, women, ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall

... then existed in Germany, to carry into our country an invasion which was destined to import the revolution by force, was to injure the revolution in Germany, to consolidate the governments, and ... to deliver the legions over defenseless to the German troops."[3] Wilhelm Liebknecht, then twenty-two years of age, who was in favor of Herwegh's project, wrote afterward of Marx's opposition. Marx "understood that the plan of organizing 'foreign legions' for the purpose of carrying the revolution ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... two years between us; but then, Agnes is so very small, so petite in every way, and so—so sweet and so defenseless." ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... departure of the first contingent, and at a time when families were practically defenseless, news reached us by a tired rider that 700 Indians had crossed the trail over the Cascade mountains and were burning the homes and butchering the settlers on the Calapooya, twenty miles away. The news reached us in ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson

... most favorable to herself. That our own interest coincided with our duty to Belgium did not by any means render our duty a mere excuse for action. If a burglar is making his way upward in the house where Mr. Shaw lives and Mr. Shaw comes down and collars him in the flat of a defenseless invalid below and hands him over to the police Mr. Shaw would not expect the police to say, "You are a hypocrite; you only seized the burglar because you feared he would come to you next." I stick to the burglar simile, because a burglar is just ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... she gazed from him to the black, cold guns. Without them he appeared shorn of strength, defenseless, a smaller man. Was she Delilah? Swiftly, conscious of only one motive—refusal to see this man called craven by his enemies—she rose, and with blundering fingers buckled the belt round his ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... was passing through was an expiation for the great mistake of his youth. He had evaded the service of his country, and now he was enveloped in all the horrors of war, with the humiliation of a passive and defenseless being, without any of the soldier's satisfaction of being able to return the blows. He was going to die—he was sure of that—but a shameful death, unknown and inglorious. The ruins of his mansion were going to become his sepulchre. . . . And the certainty of dying ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... laws encourage blackmailing by the police; also that the police may arrest poor, hard-working and defenseless girls, out for a legitimate lark and charge them by error or vindictively. The fear of blackmailing by the police is, I think, the one valid objection. Possibly it can be met by a much wider use of ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... the Isle of Wight they found six vessels of the Danes in a harbor there. Three of these Danish vessels were afloat, and came out boldly to attack Alfred's armament. The other three were upon the shore, where they had been left by the tide, and were, of course, disabled and defenseless until the water should rise and float them again. Under these circumstances, it would seem that the victory for Alfred's fleet would have been easy and sure; and at first the result was, in fact, in Alfred's favor. Of the three ships that came out to ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... nearly twenty years he was in the employ of the government, obtaining at last the post of Assistant Resident of Lebak, a province of Java. In this responsible position he used his influence to stem the abuses and extortions practiced by the native chiefs against the defenseless populace. But his humanitarianism clashed with the interests of his government, and sacrificing a brilliant career to a principle, he sent in his resignation and returned to Holland in 1856 a poor man. He began to put his experiences on paper, and in 1860 published the book that made ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... Invites her former lord within my walls. Thus in her crime her confidence she plac'd, And with new treasons would redeem the past. What need I more? Into the room they ran, And meanly murther'd a defenseless man. Ulysses, basely born, first led the way. Avenging pow'rs! with justice if I pray, That fortune be their own another day! But answer you; and in your turn relate, What brought you, living, to the Stygian state: Driv'n by the winds and ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... giant, in a voice of thunder. The bloodthirsty Wallachians would have rushed madly on their defenseless prey, had not the giant stood between him ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... country and gardens near that city, hundreds of unarmed men and defenseless women and children, many of whom had fled thither for their lives, were afterwards savagely butchered by Moslems and Druzes. The missionaries then asked for a guard from the city governor, which he refused until the American Consul in Beirut ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson

... 587 B.C. came the invasion of the Gauls from the north and the famous battle of the Allia, in which the Romans suffered defeat and were forced to the right bank of the Tiber, leaving the city of Rome defenseless. Abandoned by the citizens, the city was taken, plundered, and burned by {256} the Gauls. Senators were slaughtered, though the capitol was not taken. Finally, surprised and overcome by a contingent of the Roman army, the enemy was forced to retire and ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... Kansas." This greatly angered the southern congressmen. After the senate had adjourned, Sumner was seated at his desk writing. Preston S. Brooks, of South Carolina, approached from the rear and with a heavy cane began to beat Sumner on the head. He was not only defenseless, but, though a powerful man in body, was to a certain extent held down by his desk, and it was only as he wrenched the desk from the floor that he was able to rise. The beating had been terrible and Sumner suffered from it, often with the most excruciating ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham

... taken no further on the way to retribution than that. Whatever humiliation and disgrace they are capable of feeling or have cause to feel is at that first moment at its height; it strikes upon them unaccustomed and defenseless—never so acutely sensitive as then. Afterward, familiarity with misery and shame renders them progressively more and more callous, without adding one jot to the public odium of their position. They can never forget that first clang of the ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... about to start a war, for you have money, talent, and you will quickly find aid, for, unfortunately, many are discontented. Furthermore, in this fight, which you are to begin, those who are going to suffer most are the defenseless, the innocent. The same sentiments which a month ago prompted me to come to you and ask for reforms, are those which now move me to ask you to reflect. The country, Senor, is not thinking of separating itself from the mother country. It asks only a little liberty, a little justice, ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal

... could have seen her after she had swung her paddle inboard, sitting there, gripping the gunwales with both hands, panting, her wide eyes dry, you might easily have thought of some defenseless wild thing cowering in a momentary shelter, listening for ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... the mighty forces of sin, death, and the curse can be vanquished by the righteousness of man's paltry works, by fasting, pilgrimages, masses, vows, and such gewgaws. These blind leaders of the blind turn the poor people over to the mercy of sin, death, and the devil. What chance has a defenseless human creature against these powers of darkness? They train sinners who are ten times worse than any thief, whore, murderer. The divine power of God alone can destroy sin and death, and create righteousness ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... Cambrai! Enemies are upon thy track. Defend not defenseless womanhood: knowest thou not what they have said of her? Speak what thou art taught and keep thy inmost thoughts for thyself alone. Have a care, Fenelon! thy bishopric hangs ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... ending with the maddening phrase, "all news when we meet." She was burning with curiosity, was tingling almost with suspicion. As she looked at those veils, and saw the shining of the feminine eyes behind them, it seemed to her that the two women lay in ambush while she stood defenseless in ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... nails into the poor girl's flesh, or twisted her arm in a most painful manner. When it was necessary to move from one spot to another she either jerked her roughly, or pushed her headlong before her. She seemed to be venting upon this poor defenseless creature all the hatred, cruelty, ferocity, and spite of her nine hundred years, backed by unguessable ages of fierce ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... a pitched battle between Winnie and Sarah after breakfast, over the question of feeding the cat the top of the milk. Sarah declared passionately that she would starve herself before she would feed a defenseless cat skimmed milk and Winnie, with equal fervor, had announced that when she saw herself handing over the top milk to a cat they might send her to the insane asylum ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence

... none; Hangs my helpless soul on Thee: Leave, ah! leave me not alone, Still support and comfort me. All my trust on Thee is stayed, All my help from Thee I bring; Cover my defenseless head With the shadow of ...
— Little Folded Hands - Prayers for Children • Anonymous

... once for all, and have it done with. This was the last stroke, the final straw. He could stand it no longer. He stalked over to his uncle, and really intended to lay violent hands on him; but of course he could not. That defenseless old man, that pathetic figure seemed to wilt before his piercing eyes, seemed to shrivel and literally fall to pieces. In hot disgust, Gilbert could only ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne

... Elly said, "That song sounds as if it were proud of itself." Her father's heart melted in the utter prostration of tenderness he felt for his little daughter. How like Elly! What a quick intelligence animated the sensitive, touching, appealing, defenseless darling that Elly was! Marise must have been a little girl like that. Think of her growing up in such an atmosphere of disunion and flightiness as that weak mother of hers must have given her. Queer, how Marise didn't seem to have a trace of that weakness, ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... to look out, then whipped open the gate and ran after him. Leroy turned, and, in a flash, saw that which for an instant filled him with a deadly paralysis. Between him and the bull, directly in the path of its rush, stood this slender girl, defenseless. ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine

... for the Day, you schemed for the Day; Watch how the Day will go. Slayer of age and youth and prime (Defenseless slain for never a crime) Thou art steeped in blood as a hog in slime, False friend and ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... with the Romans. The Volscians rejected the proposition with a sort of scorn. "We see," said they, "from the fate of Saguntum, what is to be expected to result from an alliance with the Romans. After leaving that city defenseless and alone in its struggle against such terrible danger, it is in vain to ask other nations to trust to your protection. If you wish for new allies, it will be best for you to go where the story of Saguntum is not known." This answer of the Volscians ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... friends had been killed, and secondly that they had suffered under a misapprehension. The settlers, in disregard of advice, were living in scattered situations over a large territory, and they were all in danger, and defenseless, even if New Amsterdam itself could escape. Kieft was heartily cursed by all impartially; he was compelled to make overtures for peace, and a pow-wow was held in Rockaway woods, in the spring of 1643. Terms were agreed upon, and, according to Indian usage, gifts were exchanged. But those of the ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... speedily provided with another interest which engrossed him to the exclusion of further efforts to bait a victim defenseless against his insolence. ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... poor thing! what put such a strange fancy into your head? An enemy in my ship! Why, there is not a man on board who would not cut off his right hand rather than harm one hair of your poor, witless, defenseless head! There was not a dry eye on the deck when you and the rest wuz lifted from ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... letter in French addressing it to the French deserter. This letter was written as if coming from a friend. It begged the Frenchman to tell the Spaniards that Frederica was in an utterly defenseless state, and to bring them on to an attack. Or if he could not persuade them to attack at least he must persuade them to remain three days longer at Fort Simon. For within that time two thousand men would arrive from Carolina and six British ships of war "which he doubted not would ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... occupied Tauride, as the region north of the Crimea, and including that peninsula, was then called. These barbarians, thinking that the Russian army was now five hundred miles west of Moscow at Kezan, and that the empire was thus defenseless, with a vast army of invasion were on the eager march for Moscow. Ivan at Kolumna heard joyfully of their approach, for he was prepared to meet them and to chastise them with merited severity. ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... and graduate students. They were soon in possession of the thrilling facts of the past night, and one of them offered to be a prisoner, if a prisoner was desired. When they heard how Bertram Cope had saved the lives of defenseless women in a lonely land, they inclined to smile. Two of them had been present on another shore when Cope had "saved" Amy Leffingwell from a watery death, and they knew how far heroics might be pushed by women who were willing ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... wavered in it from day to day, finding it hard to tear himself away from that bleak land that he had come to love, as he never had loved the country which claimed him by birth. He had been called on in this place to fight for a man's station in it; he had trampled a refuge of safety for the defenseless among its thorns. ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... Everything Everset knew, the enemy knew. That meant they knew where Earth was, and how defenseless the planet was to their form ...
— The Hour of Battle • Robert Sheckley

... resentment of the Chinese in such circumstances was intensified by the conduct of the foreign soldiery. Army life is not a school of virtue anywhere, particularly in Asia where a comparatively defenseless people open wide opportunities for evil practices and where Asiatic methods of opposition infuriate men. In almost every place where the soldiers of Europe landed, they pillaged and burned and raped and slaughtered like incarnate fiends. Chefoo to-day is an illustration ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... he saw at once that the discovery made no appreciable change. If he had been bound to silence before, he was no less bound to it now; the only difference lay in the fact that what he had just learned had rendered his bondage more intolerable. Hitherto he had felt for Sophy Viner's defenseless state a sympathy profoundly tinged with compunction. But now he was half-conscious of an obscure indignation against her. Superior as he had fancied himself to ready-made judgments, he was aware of cherishing the common doubt ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... than this: that he lay down his life for his brother." They knew nothing about us only that we were defenseless. They rode boldly on their stanch little horses flanking the frenzied steers, shooting a leader here and there as they got a chance. If an animal stumbled it went down to its death, for hundreds of pounding ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... I could not tell you the avalanche of abuse, insult and invective that he hurled upon my defenseless head. He accused me of more crimes than I had ever heard talk of. He told me that my condition was an impossible one unless I had been false to the memory of his brother; that I had dishonored his name, ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth

... that rippled on its summer way, Shrinks out of sight within its sandy bed, Defenseless of a covert from the ray, Dazzling and ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various

... welfare allow that so valuable a piece of property as Aunty Boone would be in the slave-market should be lost to commerce, and the storm of protest that followed would have overcome a less determined man. It was not on account of sympathy for the weak and defenseless that called out all this abuse, but the lawless spirit that stirs up a mob ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter

... sportive waves as they dashed upon the shore, and were swimming and diving in all directions, when the terrific yell of armed warriors broke upon their ears. It was but the work of a moment and one hundred defenseless Indians perished in the waters. When the sad intelligence came to the remainder of the tribe at Mackinaw, they fled towards the ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland

... Riverdale, that their owners can't, or won't, keep out of mischief. Meek-looking fellows some of them are. The owners go to bed at night, and the dogs pretend to go, too; but when the house is quiet and the family asleep, off goes Rover or Fido to worry poor, defenseless creatures that can't defend themselves. Their taste for sheep's blood is like the taste for liquor in men, and the dogs will travel as far to get their fun, as the men will travel for theirs. They've got it in them, and you ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders

... few weeks ago he stood there as the advocate of a powerful Company, then represented by the present defendant. He spoke then as the champion of strict justice against legal oppression; no less should he to-day champion the cause of the unprotected and the comparatively defenseless—save for that paramount power which surrounds beauty and innocence—even though the plaintiff of yesterday was the defendant of to-day. As he approached the court a moment ago he had raised his eyes and beheld the starry flag flying from its ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte

... sank upon a rejoicing army. The Indians were still yelling and dancing, and, though they were no longer allowed to sink their tomahawks in the heads of their defenseless foes, they made imaginary strokes with them, and shouted ferociously ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Betty, armed with the broom, and hotly seeking vengeance for pantry robbed or bed defiled, has closed upon her the garret doors and windows—attempts all sorts of impossible exits, to come down at last in the corner, with panting side and glaring eye, exhausted and defenseless. Our unfortunate hero could devise nothing by which he could reasonably expect to escape the heavy blows of his father. Having arrived at this conclusion and the "mulberry" about the same time, he stood with a dogged look, awaiting ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various

... for him, knowing full well that he must return as defenseless as he went away. As soon as Douglass came near the place where the white man was hiding, the latter made a leap at Fred for the purpose of tying him for a flogging. But Douglass escaped and took to the woods, where he concealed himself for a day and a night. His condition ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various

... Mary, and they were defenseless. Unhappily youth is seldom clothed in the whole armor of righteousness. My dear son was a good and honorable man, but he was not a religious man. He had yet to learn the incomparable and vital value of the practice of Christian faith. Hardcastle invited his own doom. He admitted—he even appeared ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts

... borne, but by and by men began to make bows and arrows, spears and knives, and other weapons, and began to use them on the defenseless animals. Then soon they began to eat the flesh of the animals, and presently they found that they preferred the meat thus obtained to the fruits and ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young

... sir," she said, haughtily, "that you take advantage of my position here, as a defenseless woman, to cheat me out of ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... harvest gathered from the misfortune of others, the capitalist may protect himself by hoarding or may even find profit in the fluctuations of values; but the wage earner—the first to be injured by a depreciated currency and the last to receive the benefit of its correction—is practically defenseless. He relies for work upon the ventures of confident and contented capital. This failing him, his condition is without alleviation, for he can neither prey on the misfortunes of others nor hoard his labor. One of the greatest statesmen our country ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland

... throwing up his hand in command to Hall, challenging him as plainly as words to turn his efforts from a defenseless man to one who stood ready to give him battle. Hall drew off a little from Reid's concealment, distrustful of him even though he must have known him to be unarmed, not caring to put a man behind his back. Still drawing ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... realizes his relations to his own parents: their care, their guardianship, and their love. Through this he realizes different situations and social relations, and gains clear, simple notions of right and wrong. His sympathies are active for kindness and fairness, especially for the defenseless, and he feels deeply the calamity of the poor or the suffering and hardship of the ill-treated. He is in sympathy with that poetic justice which desires immediate punishment of wrong, unfairness, injustice, cruelty, or deceit. Through fairy ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready

... on the fact that McKay himself was a warrior chieftain and familiar with the fighting methods of such men as the atrocious Blackbeard, and depicting graphically the horror of an attack by the barbarous Red Bones on the defenseless women. It took him some time to divert the chief's stubborn mind from the original plan, but in the end ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... Evil blows its foul breath over the verdant shores of Frailandia, commonly called the Philippine Archipelago. No day passes but the attack is renewed, but there is heard some sarcasm against the reverend, venerable, infallible corporations, defenseless and unsupported. Allow me, brethren, on this occasion to constitute myself a knight-errant to sally forth in defense of the unprotected, of the holy corporations that have reared us, thus again confirming the saving idea of the adage—a full stomach praises God, which is to ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... capital. The Romans landed near the town of Clupea, or Aspis, which they took, and there established their head-quarters. From thence they laid waste the Carthaginian territory with fire and sword, and collected an immense booty from the defenseless country. On the approach of winter, Manlius, one of the Consuls, by order of the Senate, returned to Rome with half of the army, while Regulus remained with the other half to prosecute the war. He carried on his operations with the utmost vigor, and was greatly assisted ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... ancestors had misled him; he felt compelled to groan under the yoke of his Gods, of whom he knew nothing except the fabulous accounts of their ministers. These, after having fettered him by the ties of opinion, have remained his masters or delivered him up defenseless to the absolute power of tyrants, no less terrible than the Gods, of whom they were the representatives upon the earth. Oppressed by the double yoke of spiritual and temporal power, it was impossible for the people to instruct ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier

... women in stores and factories, it is estimated that in the seven cities where the investigation took place approximately 65,000 women are adrift.[20] Since the majority of these are receiving less than the minimum cost of a decent living, they are "perilously defenseless young women." ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various

... Francis Bond Head, on the defenseless state of Great Britain, has excited a good deal of attention, and elicited some pretty sharp criticism from the London journals. Still, it is very generally conceded that there is a great deal ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... to Washington, as men cannot address you for us. We have no power at all; we are totally defenseless. [Miss Smith then read two short letters written by her sister Abby to the Springfield Republican.] These tell our brief story, and may I not ask, gentlemen, that they shall so plead with you that you will report to the Senate unanimously ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... regret of the handsome Major. "If I could have come out with them," he sighed. He well knew the softening effect upon romantic womanhood of a long sea voyage where the willing winds sway the softer emotions of the breast, and the trembling woman is defenseless against the perfidious darts ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... Stockbridge and of the county. To pour a volley in upon the rebels would endanger the lives of the prisoners as much as those of the enemy. Meanwhile the rebels themselves were rapidly deploying and opening fire. The militia were in danger of losing all their advantage, of being shot down defenseless, of perhaps losing the day, all owing to the presence of the prisoners in the enemy's ranks. Again Colonel Ashley gave the order to fire. Again not a ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... intervened perfidiously in the hostilities; had attacked by surprise isolated detachments; had indicated to the enemy the positions occupied by the troops; that women, old men, and even children had been guilty of horrible atrocities upon wounded and defenseless German soldiers, tearing out their eyes and cutting off fingers, nose, or ears; that the priests from their pulpits had exhorted the people to commit these crimes, promising them as a reward the Kingdom of Heaven, and had even taken the lead in ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... heavy with the javelins that stuck upon them. And thus forced to quit their own weapons, they endeavored to take advantage of those of their enemies, laid hold of the javelins with their hands, and tried to pluck them away. But the Romans, perceiving them now naked and defenseless, betook themselves to their swords, which they so well used, that in a little time great slaughter was made in the foremost ranks, while the rest fled over all parts of the level country; the hills and upper grounds Camillus ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... possibility of knowing things is justifiable or not, and no matter how far it may be justifiable, it was in any case untested; so that when the skeptic approached with his objections the dogmatist was defenseless. All previous philosophy, so far as it had not been skeptical, had been, according to Kant's expression, dogmatic; that is, it had held as an article of faith, and without precedent inquiry, that we possess the power of cognizing objects. It had ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... government of Canton was then intrusted to Pihkwei and a commission of one Frenchman and two Englishmen, and the Chinese admitted it had never been better governed. Yeh himself was sent to Calcutta, where he died two years later, and, considering the abundant evidence of his cruel treatment of defenseless prisoners, he had every reason to consider his ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... discouraged? No. Naturally it was very much surprised, very much astonished, to find its work baffling and difficult instead of simple and easy, but it had powerful allies in the shape of hunger, cold, fatigue, persecution, deception, and treachery; and opposed to this array nothing but a defenseless and ignorant girl who must some time or other surrender to bodily and mental exhaustion or get caught in one of the thousand ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... that had racked and tortured him, mocking him, meantime, jeering in his face. Ah, God, the horror of it, the monstrous, hideous, demoniacal wickedness of it! He and his family, helpless women and children, struggling to live, ignorant and defenseless and forlorn as they were—and the enemies that had been lurking for them, crouching upon their trail and thirsting for their blood! That first lying circular, that smooth-tongued slippery agent! That trap of the extra payments, the ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... laughing boy she had known, with his volatile, Lucifer-like charm of light-hearted recklessness in the face of destiny. Instead, a thinned, shy face rose before her, a face full of awkwardness and dreaming, troubled and absent; a face that one moment appealed by its defenseless forgetfulness, and the next, coerced by a look eloquent ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson

... of the barrio, but all around the jungle woke to the night. Noxious blooms raised their heads to drink in the deadly moisture; hungry pythons took up their silent vigil at water holes; night prowlers slunk in the gloom to spring on the more defenseless creatures, and over it all the inscrutable jungle kept watch, passing silent judgment on man and beast, in ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart

... manicure. Never have I had my nails polished so often as during those days of waiting! Now—after six years—she must be dead. I shall not wrong her memory by recording that she was very partial to the bottle. The poor old soul was defenseless against those that I brought her and that I ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit



Words linked to "Defenseless" :   defenselessly, defenselessness, defenceless, unarmed, defencelessly, vulnerable



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com