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Defenseless   /dɪfˈɛnsləs/   Listen
Defenseless

adjective
1.
Lacking protection or support.  Synonym: defenceless.
2.
Having no protecting or concealing cover.  Synonym: naked.
3.
Lacking weapons for self-defense.  Synonym: defenceless.



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"Defenseless" Quotes from Famous Books



... cambric stork wings, hopped upon the stage of sward and deposited the brown-wrapped Suckling in a hollow log in the center, and departed flapping. After that the ceremonial developed itself into the education that was to flow down upon her defenseless head at the waving of the wand of Minerva, who was Charlotte with a tinsel star of wisdom resting rampantly upon her brow. And it came down upon the Suckling with a vengeance. A whole troop of young letters of ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... spoken more 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 may be subtler than any beast of the field; but he is not necessarily ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... it, of course, but I knew Pike was not a man to give up easily, and that he must have fully understood how much the snow helped to defeat them. I knew that since the weather had moderated a spy might have come in the night and discovered that I was alone and how defenseless the town was. ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth

... in the van, the old-type craft far in the rear, it bore down upon the 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 ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith

... Bright, Liberals like Gladstone and Cornewall Lewis, Conservatives like Lowe and Disraeli, all came to believe that separation was only a question of time. Yet honor made them hesitate to set the defenseless colonies adrift to be seized by the ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton

... report on living conditions of 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

... have died from their privations, or from the unhealthful climate. In view of the recent destruction of the city of Manila by fire, Vera has forbidden the people to build any more houses of wood, obliging them to use stone for that purpose. Finding the city practically defenseless, Vera has begun to build near it a fort and other means of defense; and he asks for a small number of paid soldiers as a garrison for the city. He has assessed on the encomenderos and other citizens and on ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair

... Archbishop of 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 by a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... party came in view, and, without suspecting what lay in front, advanced with quick gait towards the supposedly defenseless town. But suddenly, with a wild yell, the followers of Zeno leaped from behind the screening bushes, and dashed towards them. At the same instant, the soldiers who had been placed in hiding, attacked suddenly from the rear. Arrows poured into the ranks of the Genoese, and they ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston

... and variegated with a deep yellow, a purple, a cream colour, black and brown, spotted, &c. As soon as he saw the Arab in the room, his eyes, which were small and green, kindled as with fire; he erected himself in a second, his head two feet high; and darting on the defenseless Arab, seized him between the folds of his haik, just above his right hipbone, hissing most horribly; the Arab gave a horrid shriek, when another serpent came out of the cage. This last was black, very shining, and appeared to be seven or eight feet long, ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... across his face. Through the barrier and free—but Hume was back there, without a weapon, defenseless against any questing beast able to nose him out. Sickly, without water and protection, he was a dead man even while he ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton

... to fix my attention on the fixity of the bed. I put my hand over my eyes to shut out all thought save of the dead woman, defenseless already, reclining on that earth into which she will sink. But my looks, impelled by superhuman curiosity, escape between my fingers to this other woman, half revealed to me in the tumult of sorrow, and my eyes ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... the hedgehog, contracted the habit 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 approximate ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew

... that the pirates had perceived the almost defenseless condition of the schooner. In a few minutes they would be swarming the deck, for poor old Sing would be entirely helpless to repel them. If Dr. von Horn were only there, thought the distracted girl. With the machine gun alone ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... 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 growl and to snarl at one another and to feast on ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... could stand; And this when peril pressed him sore, Left aidless in the shivered front of war— Skulkers behind, defiant foes before, And fighting with a broken brand. The challenge in that courage rare— Courage defenseless, proudly bare— Never could tempt him; he could dare Strike up the ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville

... send him to me. She did not come back, and I began to fear that I would actually be dragged down to supper. It was as if I had been kidnapped. I felt like Gulliver among the giants. These people were all too—well, too much what they were. No chill of manner could hold them off. I was defenseless. I must get away. I ran to the top of the staircase and looked down. There was that fool Peppo, beleaguered by a bevy of fair women. They were simply looting him, and he was grinning like an idiot. I gathered up my train, ran down, and made a dash at him, yanked him out of that circle of ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... 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 broken umbrella which was ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... less than seven times by a mob of chivalrous gentlemen, varying in number from two or three score to three hundred, led by a judge who deemed it not beneath his dignity to preside over a court of justice by day, and to search the premises of a defenseless woman by night, in the hope of finding the Union flag, in order to have an excuse for ejecting her from the city, because she was well known to entertain sentiments inimical to the interests ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... need? No! It is not the imperialistic leaders in these industrial wars who pay the price. It is always the little Bobbies and Maggies who pay. The people of America stood aghast with horror when an unarmed passenger ship was torpedoed or a defenseless village was bombed by order of a ruthless Kaiser; but we permit these Kaisers of capital and labor to carry on their industrial wars without a thought of the innocent ones who must suffer under their ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright

... than simply uneasy if he could have looked far enough into the future to see that Jack's ship was destined to be one of the first of a large number of defenseless vessels to fall into the hands of Captain Semmes, who, as commander of the Sumter, unfurled the Confederate flag on the high seas, June 30, 1861. But, as we shall presently see, the Sabine did not "stay captured." She escaped, and brought the prize crew that Semmes had thrown aboard of ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon

... of the boys he could register vows of future vengeance and console himself with the promise of bloody retribution; but against the endless queries and insinuations of his adult neighbors, he was utterly defenseless. ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... appeared in exaggerated form in many an Eastern paper. What made it worse was that, as told in Boston, Philadelphia, and other far Eastern communities, where the Indian is little known and much considered, Button's interests were bound to suffer, for he was declared to have butchered defenseless women and children in a surrendered village—a most unjust accusation in spite of the fact that certain squaws and boys had died fighting with their braves by night, when bullets could not well discriminate. Button had but just got his promotion to regimental ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King

... wretchedness, famine, bestial cruelties, and blood. They were like two poor little leaves in a storm which bore death and annihilation not only to the heads of individuals, but to whole towns and entire tribes. What hand could snatch from it and save two small, defenseless children? ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... of guerrillas. McCook was unwell, riding in an ambulance some distance in advance of the column; while stopping in front of a farm-house to make some enquiry, the guerrillas made a sudden dash, the escort fled, and McCook was killed while lying in the ambulance defenseless. When the Dutchmen of his old regiment learned of the unfortunate occurrence they became uncontrollable, and destroyed the buildings and property on five plantations near the scene of the murder. ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... broom-sedge, Mammy watched them, casting eager, anxious looks upon them, fearing, dreading to see her boy in their midst, a poor, defenseless captive. Finally, as the last horseman disappeared, she heaved a sigh of infinite relief. "Bless de good Lord, dey ain't took de po' chile wid 'em," and so went on ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux

... person who drew it up, one of the bitterest and most mischievous enemies this country has ever known." Speaking thus, he looked full at Franklin, and drew upon him the general attention. But Chatham hastened to defend the defenseless one. "The plan is entirely my own," he said; "but if I were the first minister, and had the care of settling this momentous business, I should not be ashamed of calling to my assistance a person so perfectly acquainted with the whole of American affairs, one whom ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... territory sheltered by our flag; That butchery must cease throughout the world; That, having ended human slavery, Old glory has a mission from on high To stop the slaughter of the smiling babe, The pale, crazed mother, weak, defenseless sire, All places on ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle

... man wailed his miserable assent. His half-sister's reproachful eyes distracted him; the mention of her defenseless position before the world touched his sorest feeling. It was almost more than he could stand, He was upon the verge of hysterical breakdown, when ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... about him, striking with weapons of all kinds at his defenseless body. Some even jumped and ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes

... full measure of strength and agility, and through years of experience have come to a full knowledge of the many dangers to which their race is exposed. It would seem extraordinary that nature should have cared so well for them, and should have left the more defenseless females and young unprotected from the dangers likely to come to them from enemies which may make ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various

... clutches at another and drowns him; or a hungry mother exhausted by feeding her baby, who steals some food; or a man trained to discipline who on duty at the word of command kills a defenseless man—seem less guilty, that is, less free and more subject to the law of necessity, to one who knows the circumstances in which these people were placed, and more free to one who does not know that the man was himself drowning, that the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... adorable yet brawny creatures, leaping six feet into the air and smacking a defenseless tennis ball with such vigor that it started right off in the general direction of Sioux Falls at the rate of upwards of ninety miles an hour, and coming down flat-footed without having jostled so much as a hairpin out of place. You may worship them, all right enough, but it is safer to do so ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... face up!" Will interrupted impatiently. "Listen, Schillingschen. You're an all-in scoundrel. You're a spy. You're a bloody murderer of women and defenseless natives. If we could prove that we wouldn't argue with you. We know you burned that dhow with the women in it, but we've got no evidence, that's all. We know the German government wants that ivory, and we know why. We also want it. Our only reason for secrecy is that ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... shatter, exhaust, weaken &c. 160. Adj. powerless, impotent, unable, incapable, incompetent; inefficient, ineffective; inept; unfit, unfitted; unqualified, disqualified; unendowed; inapt, unapt; crippled, disabled &c. v.; armless[obs3]. harmless, unarmed, weaponless, defenseless, sine ictu[Lat], unfortified, indefensible, vincible, pregnable, untenable. paralytic, paralyzed; palsied, imbecile; nerveless, sinewless[obs3], marrowless[obs3], pithless[obs3], lustless[obs3]; emasculate, disjointed; out of joint, out of gear; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... companions for a moment bore back the foe; 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, for although the width is not ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... for what they really were—proofs of the entirely defenseless condition of an immense sweep of coast, in the face of the heavy and increasing naval armament of the United States. They were considered reverses merely; inquiry went but little deeper and the lesson they should have taught was lost; while ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... carriages as they moved sadly along, and 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 ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... was 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 ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... space as is filled by the speech itself. The well-founded and well-supported charges he made against the Democratic Legislature of the State brought upon him the savage strictures of the Democratic partisan press, showing that he had penetrated the weak point in his adversaries' somewhat defenseless defenses. ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard

... with this rude awakening has come fear, fear bordering on panic. It is said that we are defenseless. It is whispered by some that, only by abandoning our freedom, our ideals, our way of life, can we build our defenses adequately, can we match ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt

... 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

... the 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 ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... of war, and invited them to ally themselves 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 ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... 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 ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... do you call it if it isn't cowardice—to slink off and marry a defenseless girl ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... flushed with victory. Christian Europe was trembling before them. And now an army of three hundred thousand had crossed the Danube, sweeping all opposition before them, and were spreading terror and destruction through Hungary. The capture of that immense kingdom seemed to leave all Europe defenseless. ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... found it out, for in any case I had meant to make a clean breast of it before we parted,"—he hesitated—then looked up frankly—"I would rather you spoke no more of it, Harry! I've made my confession. I admit I nearly struck Leveson for slandering an innocent and defenseless woman,—and I believe you'll forgive me for that. Next, I own that though I am getting into the sere and yellow leaf, I am still conscious of a heart,—and that I feel a regretful yearning at times for the joys I have missed out of my ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... itself, but it would sail splendidly about the Earth in an orbit some four thousand miles up, and it would gird the world in four hours fourteen minutes and twenty-two seconds. It would carry atom-headed guided missiles, and every city in the world would be defenseless against it. Nobody could even hope for world domination so long as it floated on its celestial round. Which, naturally, was why there were such desperate efforts to destroy it ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster

... ought certainly to awaken in American bosoms every throb of pity and every sentiment of manliness. We have had accounts of butcheries called "battles" in which have been slaughtered hundreds of almost defenseless creatures for no offense except that of standing up for their independence. It is said that certain districts that would not acknowledge our mastery have been turned into wildernesses, and that in these districts the number of the slain may ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume

... measure," answered Elias. "You must be surprised that I, another unfortunate, young and strong, should propose to you, old and weak, peaceful measures, but it's because I've seen as much misery caused by us as by the tyrants. The defenseless are the ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... Philadelphia by the route over which Washington had just ridden. The feat was not impossible. Washington would have had a stern chase in following Cornwallis, who might have been able to live off the country. Clinton could help by attacking Philadelphia, which was almost defenseless. ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong

... 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, and a ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... been duly aired in summer, or warmed in winter. If this is not done, it is almost manslaughter. That corner in our houses should be used for parlors, store-rooms, or anything, rather than for sleeping people in. We have had some experience in this matter and know how utterly defenseless people are when assigned one of these rooms where death dwells. An open attack with a bludgeon is preferable. Cold, fresh air is beneficial, but ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill

... implacable and merciless. The world's wealth couldn't seduce or bribe him from the support of the men he liked, no matter how poor they might be; and he would on every occasion interpose to protect the helpless and defenseless from the violence or maltreatment of others. Crime of any degree was never alleged to his account. He had faithfully served as collector of moneys for the County Treasurer two years, and fully accounted for every dollar that he received. Beyond his fighting bouts ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara

... savages, doubtless, thought Meriem; but where were they? Not even her keen eyes could discover them. And where was Numa? Why had he not long since sprung upon this delicious and defenseless morsel? That he was close by was attested by the pitiful crying of the kid. Ah! Now she saw him. He was lying close in a clump of brush a few yards to her right. The kid was down wind from him and getting the full benefit of his terrorizing scent, which ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... sudden clamorings of those who had seen part of this—seen an armed man assault another, unarmed and defenseless, at their very firesides. Men came running up. Jesse Wingate came out from the side ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... showed them no compassion." They had for years fought side by side with the soldiers of Britain, they had, with stealthy tread, come down upon our settlements far removed from the seat of war, surprised peaceful inhabitants, slain defenseless women and children, plundered and burned their dwellings, and wrought in the hearts of the American people a sense of wrong, that cried for redress. What could be their position, now that the armies ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard

... but not by right. A club is but a thing having no will and no rights, yet in the hands of a savage it adds greatly to his power and may be used by him to oppress another of his tribe. A ruffian with his gun meeting a defenseless man may so command him, that he is ready for the most abject obedience. An armed highwayman may compel a brave man "to stand and deliver." So a man may use his property to secure the service of another but it gives him no ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott

... he would. But he gave her his strong grip and friendly smile. Just then his face did not look hard. He could not tell her why he had held his cousin on the grill so long, that it had been in punishment for what he had done to a defenseless friend of his in the name of love. What he did say suited her perhaps ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... or more, and each wound so serious that it would have been the death of any less mighty man. Both were weary and weak from their exertions, but still they fought on. Their helmets were hewed off and their armor fell to pieces till they were almost naked and defenseless. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... New York into New Jersey, support them for 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; ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... peninsula, on the edge of a superb natural harbor, the entrance to which is masked by the Brioni Islands, is the great naval base of Pola, from the shelter of whose fortifications and mined approaches the Austrian fleet was able to terrorize the defenseless towns along Italy's unprotected eastern seaboard and to menace the commerce of the northern Adriatic. Pola Is a strange melange of the ancient and the modern, for from the topmost tiers of the great Roman Arena—scarcely less imposing ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell

... hastened home to defend the 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 by the incompetency of the ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... 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 eternal sleep ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth

... 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 tales ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready

... his inclinations, returning to Millie Stope. In a final, desperate rally of his scattering resolution he told himself that he was unfaithful to the tragic memory of Ellen. This last stay broke abruptly, and left him defenseless against the tyranny of his mounting desires. Strangely he felt the sudden pressure of a stirring wind upon his face; and, almost with an oath, he put the wheel sharply over and the ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer

... matter 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 interests of ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne

... the pain-distorted lips. In his eyes was a hurt agony of reproach, as if the knife of a friend had been unexpectedly thrust into his heart. Dick's arm, tensed by the insane anger of his mind, was drawn back to deal another blow, and seemed to stop half-way, impotent to strike that defenseless ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton

... up, with soapsuds dripping from the flanges of my shell-like ears and running down my neck, and once again toward the close of the operation, when he has laid aside his razor and is sousing my defenseless features in a liquid that smells and tastes a good deal like those scented pink blotters they used to give away at drug-stores to advertise ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb

... only strained his hold tighter about the man's legs. Bridge felt a soft cheek pressed to his knee; and, for some unaccountable reason, the appeal was stronger than the pleading of the girl. Slowly Bridge realized that he could not leave this defenseless youth alone even though a dozen women might be menaced by the uncanny death below. With a firm hand he shot the bolt. "Leave go of me," he said; "I shan't leave you unless she calls for help ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... which the outbreak had occurred and the extraordinary rapidity with which it spread, driving the defenseless settlers from their homes and causing desolation and ruin on every side, rendered it necessary for the governor to call an extra session of the legislature for the purpose of devising means to arm and equip volunteers, and assist the homeless refugees ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore

... go! Shame on the man who insults a defenseless girl! You swear! Then I, too, may take an oath, and, by the head of my mother, you shall never see me again excepting as a corpse, if you ever attempt violence! You are Caesar—you are the stronger. Who ever doubted it? But you will never compel me to a vile action, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... that ye show great kindness to weak and defenseless shades by caring for them in this manner. But who will assure ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... came out of the darkened tent the clumsiest of all the animals. The elk and moose were burdened with their heavy and many-branched horns, while the antelope and deer were made the most defenseless of animals, only that they are fleet of foot. The bear and the wolf were made to prey upon all ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... secretly she was creeping among fears, longing, and guilt. She knew what it was, but she dared not name it. She hated even the sound of the word "sex." When she dreamed of being a woman of the harem, with great white warm limbs, she awoke to shudder, defenseless in the dusk of her room. She prayed to Jesus, always to the Son of God, offering him the terrible power of her adoration, addressing him as the eternal lover, growing passionate, exalted, large, as she contemplated his splendor. Thus she mounted ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... that they are an incomplete version of ourselves touches me. They actually seem defenseless, ...
— Second Landing • Floyd Wallace

... mob me. I was struck more than once... It wasn't to tell the police to charge. You must believe me—you MUST.... I was afraid they WOULD charge again, so I rushed at them. All I remember distinctly is shouting to them that they mustn't do it again—mustn't charge into that defenseless mob.... It was horrible." He paused, and shut his eyes as though to blot out a picture painted on his mind. Then he spoke more calmly. "The police didn't understand, either. They thought I belonged to the mob, and they arrested me.... I slept—I ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... 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 as to the disinterestedness of the woman ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... 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 ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts

... 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

... 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 distinction. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... 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

... as I can remember it was on August 20th that the climax came. Liege had fallen. The English Expedition had landed, and was marching on Belgium. A victorious German army had goose-stepped into defenseless Brussels, and was sweeping out toward the French frontier. The French advance into Alsace ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich

... resolved that Julietta should not be left unwed and defenseless to that mockery. Julietta should have her chance ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley

... 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 ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... honor and integrity than any other race known to history. Did it ever occur to you that the South is even wild in its praises of negro fidelity in the days when it was prostrate in civil strife and its defenseless women and children committed to the care of the black men of the South? Is there a single case of treachery or infidelity recorded against us? Did it ever occur to you that the Northern soldier ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various

... tenacious as remorse, had fastened itself in his brain. It now seemed to him that all he 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 ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... wherever silver plate is supposed to be secreted, wherever money might be expected, there they concentrate and rob without inquiry as to the character of the owner. Hence the system is destructive to all confidence, and to the safety of even innocent and defenseless females. ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson

... should put away all defense and make no attempt to excuse himself either in his own eyes or before the Lord. Whoever defends himself will have himself for his defense, and he will have no other; but let him come defenseless before the Lord and he will have for his defender no less than God Himself. Let the inquiring Christian trample under foot every slippery trick of his deceitful heart and insist upon frank and ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer

... on Thee is stayed; all my help from Thee I bring; Cover my defenseless head with the shadow of ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various

... itself. Again I went for him, and saw a very strange sight. The observer had climbed out of his seat and was on the left plane, holding to the struts. He looked frightened, and it was really a sorry plight to be in. He was defenseless, and I hesitated to shoot at him. I had evidently put their controls out of commission, and the machine had fallen. To right it, the observer had climbed out on the plane and restored its equilibrium. I fired a few more shots ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke

... as well as brave. 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

... snarl he closed upon his defenseless victim, but ere his fangs had reached the throat they thirsted for, there was a sharp report and a bullet entered the ape's ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... thinking that this moment was the strangest that had ever happened to her. By the light of the camp-fire she saw Dale's face, just as usual, still, darkly serene, expressing no thought. He was kind, but he was not thinking of these sisters as girls, alone with him in a pitch-black forest, helpless and defenseless. He did not seem to be thinking at all. But Helen had never before in her life been so ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey

... your 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 ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... through the slaves. "Simba," they whispered in terror. A little while later there was another rumble, this time much closer. They speedily became more frightened. Here they were, ten days' march from the coast, unarmed, and quite defenseless against a lion. ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon

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

... crouching woman took a Highland knife in her breast. For one breath she grasped the back of it with both hands, and her rapt eyes met the horrified eyes of Colonel Fraser. He withdrew the weapon, standing defenseless, and a ball struck him, cutting the blood across his arm, and again he was lost in the fury of battle, while Jeannette felt ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... rage the former bully of Putnam Hall strode forward and without warning struck the defenseless Dick a heavy ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield

... were chained, 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 suspended ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... friend who had evidently dropped in from some store or office during the lunch hour. Now and again the fat man paused in his vocal efforts to reprimand her for her slackness. She paid no heed. There was something gruesome, uncanny, about the way her fingers went their own way over the defenseless keys. Her conversation with the frowzy ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... followed like sheep, and I heard them kick the candles flying, in their panic. One of them stepped on the Electric Pentacle, and smashed it, and there was an utter darkness. In an instant, I realized that I was defenseless against the powers of the Unknown World, and with one savage leap I was out of the useless Barriers, and instantly through the great doorway, and into the night. I believe I yelled with ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson

... words were 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

... 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 ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... 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 of the Farmers' Alliance did ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... yet do not we all find that they are 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 ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... at this agreeable entertainment was truly pitiable. For, not only was he exposed defenseless to the harangues of Mrs. Wilfer, but he received the utmost contumely at the hands of Lavinia, who, partly to show Bella that she (Lavinia) could do what she liked with him, and partly to pay him off for still obviously admiring Bella's beauty, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... Blanche, savagely. "I will tell Harry at my own time, when we are married. You will not betray me, will you? You, having a defenseless girl's secret, will not turn upon her and use it? S'il me plait de le cacher, mon secret; pourquoi le donnerai-je? Je l'aime, mon pauvre pere, voyez-vous? I would rather live with that man than with you fades intriguers of the world. ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Fontanelle. With the coming of the Americans the outlook had so changed that, although the war was not yet over, they could look forward to the future with some degree of hope. The news brought from Rheims by occasional refugees was always sad. The Germans continued to shell the defenseless city, and the Cathedral sustained more and more injuries, but the beautiful stained-glass windows had been carefully taken down, the broken pieces put together as far as possible, and the whole shipped to safer places in France. The statue ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... mood. In a pretty affectation, we were asked to meditate upon the old garret, the deserted hearth, the old letters, the old well-sweep, the dead baby, the little shoes; we were put into a mood in which we were defenseless against the lukewarm flood of the Tupperean Philosophy. Even the newspapers caught the bathetic tone. Every "local" editor breathed his woe over the incidents of the police court, the falling leaf, the tragedies of the boarding-house, ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner

... rhythm and rhyme, with due regard for euphony and cadence, is always safe, and is totally different from bursting out upon a defenseless ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... but furs went home in the ships to France. The colony depended upon its mother country even for its annual food supply, and when the ships from France failed to come the colonists were reduced to severe privations. A dispirited and nearly defenseless land, without solid foundations of agriculture or industry, with an accumulation of Indian enmity and an empty treasury—this was the legacy which the Company now turned over to the Crown in return for the viceroyal privileges given ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro

... with the 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

... be very convenient," replied the Marquis, with still more vivacity, "but the proof that it is not true is that you yourself are filled with remorse at not having saved the soul so weak of that defenseless child. Ah, I do not mince the truth to myself, and I shall not do so to you. You remember the morning when you were so gay, and when you gave me the theory of your cosmopolitanism? It amused you, as a perfect dilettante, so you said, to assist in one of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... Europe with you, they horned in, claimed a squatter's right, and stood pat. Old Brent was defenseless, and while the boys from the mill would have cleaned them out if I had given the word, the Greeks and the negro were defiant, and it meant bloodshed. So I have permitted the matter to rest until ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... of Virginia, to succeed Patrick Henry. He assumed the duties of this office in a most gloomy time. The enemy were preparing to carry the war into the South, and Jefferson knew they would find Virginia almost defenseless. Her resources were drained to the dregs to sustain hostilities in South Carolina and Georgia, and her sea coast was almost wholly unprotected. The State was invaded by the enemy several times and once the Governor was ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... over them, the mother building the cubs' future on the foundation of the two instincts which are strong in every wild creature born into a world of danger,—the instinct to lie still and let nature's coloring hide all defenseless little ones, and the instinct to obey instantly a stronger will ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long

... three clever German girls had been more or less prepared to hear Germany proved a liar. They knew from British wounded that London was neither a fortified city nor reduced to ashes; also that all the Zeppelin raids on defenseless towns put together had been of less strategical value to Germany than the taking of one village in the war zone; she had merely piled up a mountain of hatred and contempt which must be leveled by the quick repudiation of her ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton

... a 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

... you heartily for your book on "Defenseless America." It is a capital book and I believe it is safe to say that no wise and patriotic American can fail to recognize the service that you have rendered in writing it. I hope it will have the widest possible ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... 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 mob had melted away like a small snowbank in a hot sun. It was one thing to help lynch a defenseless Mexican; it was quite another to face nine or ten determined men backing the law. Scarce a score of the vigilantes remained, and most of them were looking for a chance to save their faces "without starting anything," as Jumbo put ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine

... 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 the party who by this time had ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan



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



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