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Defenseless   /dɪfˈɛnsləs/   Listen
Defenseless

adverb
1.
Without defense.  Synonyms: defenceless, defencelessly, defenselessly.



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"Defenseless" Quotes from Famous Books



... 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 ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew

... lies That my house have beset, and with malice blockade Every pathway I out for my powers have laid, And would hidden means find With deceit and with hate To set watch on my mind And defile every plate In my beautiful home where defenseless we wait? ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... 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 ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... 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 ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... effective for campaign purposes among intelligent people. The frequency of these lynchings calls attention to the frequency of the crimes which causes lynching. The "Southern barbarism" which deserves the serious attention of all people North and South, is the barbarism which preys upon weak and defenseless women. Nothing but the most prompt, speedy and extreme punishment can hold in check the horrible and beastial propensities of the Negro race. There is a strange similarity about a number of cases of this character which ...
— Southern Horrors - Lynch Law in All Its Phases • Ida B. Wells-Barnett

... 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, it was the bravest political ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll

... hatred of Christian missionaries. Jaimihr would attempt a rescue; it was common knowledge that he plotted for the throne. There would be instant civil war, in which the British Government would perforce back up the alleged protector of a defenseless woman. There would be a new Maharajah; then, in a little while, and in all likelihood, she would have disappeared forever while the war raged. There would be, no doubt, a circumstantial story of her ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... inspired by the prevailing belief that England was overpopulated. There was much to justify the belief. The reign of Elizabeth witnessed a striking increase in the number of unemployed, the poverty-stricken, and the vagabond. The destruction of the monasteries left the poor and defenseless without their accustomed sources of relief; while steadily rising prices, due partly to the increased supply of silver from the Spanish-American mines, were not infrequently disastrous to those who were ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... been influenced by my distrust of Mrs. Tenbruggen, or perhaps by my anxiety to protect Eunice. It struck me that I might warn the defenseless girl to be on her guard with Mrs. Tenbruggen to better purpose, if Eunice was in a position to recognize her in any future emergency that might occur. To my mind, this dangerous woman was doubly formidable—and for a good reason; she was the bosom friend of that innocent and unwary ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... perfectly capable of either of these often find their resolution fail them as the time comes for striking a dagger into the living flesh of their victim, when he sits at ease and unconcerned before them, unarmed and defenseless, and doing nothing to excite those feelings of irritation and anger which are generally found so necessary to nerve the human arm to such deeds. Utter defenselessness is accordingly, sometimes, a greater protection than an ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott

... [223]The meek and defenseless Lamb of God was led into a den of ravenous wolves, who were thirsting for his blood. They did not dignify his case by even filing a formal charge against him. They sought, contrary to the law, to make him ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford

... risks which Rumania had run, as a small country, and the deterring effect of the fate of Serbia and Belgium, the King continued, "Notwithstanding the savagery with which the enemy is attacking us and the cruelty with which our defenseless women and children are being massacred, this government will endeavor to prevent bitterness from dominating its actions in the way of reprisals on prisoners or defenseless noncombatants; and to this end orders have been ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... the occasion? Shall 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 ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser

... though always crying for protection, had refused to march with Bouquet to save Fort Pitt or to furnish him the slightest assistance. Instead of going westward where the danger was and something might be accomplished, they had turned eastward among the settlements and murdered a few poor defenseless people, mostly women ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher

... you you'd have to stop 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

... have been sprung. This, of course, is nonsense. I measureably increase the pressure. Dandy Jim again registers consternation, coughs feebly, and rolls his eyes round appealingly, as if wondering whether the world is to sit, without heart, and watch a poor defenseless horse being slain. He is ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

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

... "Something has happened to a gentle and defenseless member of our community. We don't ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit

... forward with his elbows on his knees, tracing figures in the sand with his shoe. Eleanor noticed the nice way his hair grew on the back of his neck and the white skin that met the clear brown skin at the collar-line. In spite of his bigness and his strength, he seemed very young and defenseless when it came ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... definite claims of the evil deeds that may be compelled during hypnotic sleep is that of Dr. Luys, whom we have already seen as being himself deceived by professional hypnotic subjects. Says he: "You cannot only oblige this defenseless being, who is incapable of opposing the slightest resistance, to give from hand to hand anything you may choose, but you can also make him sign a promise, draw up a bill of exchange, or any other kind of agreement. You may make him write an holographic will (which according to French ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus

... 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; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... 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 weapons were their ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum

... further look of perplexity in the editor's face that now betrayed a growing anger, he continued jerkily: "We're coming very near to war, sir; this country, our country, against those sickening anti-Christs who bayonet children, rape women, and wantonly torture unto death defenseless men—and boast of it, sir; gloat over it! It'll be our country against that polluted swamp of slimy creatures, sir; and in our country there shall be neither Democrats nor Republicans! Politics be damned, sir! Until those ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris

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

... an evil, when we have only changed its name. We have contrived to withdraw from the slave just that fiction of property relation which made it for the interest of some one to care for him a little, however imperfectly; and, having destroyed that, we turn him out defenseless to shift for himself in a community every member of which is embittered against him. The whole South resounds with the outcries of slaves suffering the vindictive wrath of former masters; laws are being passed hunting them out of this State and out of that; the animosity of race—at ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... 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 back between ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... it naturally fell to the admirably organized Church to keep order, when it could, by threats or persuasion; to see that sworn contracts were kept, that the wills of the dead were administered, and marriage obligations observed. It took the defenseless widow and orphan under its protection and dispensed charity; it promoted education at a time when few laymen, however rich and noble, pretended even to read. These conditions serve to explain why the Church was finally able greatly to extend the powers which it had enjoyed under the ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... nor anybody else to this house. I'm all alone. I hope you have more honor than to come and disturb defenseless, unprotected women." ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... of the sheep were still huddled on the edge of the ravine when there came the thud of horses' hoofs and the crack of revolvers, accompanied by hoarse, triumphant yells and cries. Melissy knew instantly what it was—the attack of cattlemen upon her defenseless flock. They had waited until the sheep were on the edge of the precipice, and now they were going to drive the poor creatures down upon the rocks two hundred feet below. Her heart leaped to her throat, but scarce more quickly than she upon a huge ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... which somebody else would reap. Watching the battered domestic utensils and furniture being carried out for sale had the same disturbing effect. Poor and comfortless as the shack was, it had, until rude hands had desecrated it, been a home. George felt that he was consenting to the ruin of a defenseless man, assisting to drive him forth, a wanderer and an outcast. He wondered how far the terrors of loneliness had urged Langside into his reckless courses—homesteaders scattered about the wide, empty spaces occasionally became ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

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

... 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

... truth reached me that since I came to live with him my uncle had been bitting and breaking his tongue. It occurred to me that Bill Seaver, whom I secretly despised, had spoilt him and that I had done wrong in leaving him all the afternoon defenseless ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... curious psychological process the Indian Chief, who an hour before had awakened in her admiration and a certain romantic interest, had in a single moment become an object of loathing, almost of hatred. That he should be in this land planning for her people, for innocent and defenseless women and children, the horrors of massacre filled her with a fierce anger. But a deeper analysis would doubtless have revealed a personal element in her anger and loathing. The Indian had become the enemy for whose capture and ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor

... looked back at the old house, forlorn amidst its huddle of blackberry briers and weeds, and with the ubiquitous "silver-leaf" saplings springing up in clusters everywhere about it and closing in on its defenseless walls like squads of victorious soldiery making the final charge upon ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln

... through the elastic rupture of their capsule whose walls pinch them out. To be suddenly hit in the face by such a missile brings no smile while the sting lasts. Witch-hazel twigs ripening indoors transform a peaceful living room into a defenseless ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... up sticks on the Sabbath day, to go to the theater, or large parties during Lent, to read a notice of any reform meeting from the altar, or permit a woman to speak in the church. In our creed it is a sin to hold a slave; to hang a man on the gallows; to make war on defenseless nations, or to sell rum to a weak brother, and rob the widow and the orphan of a protector and a home. Thus may we write out some of our differences, but from the similarity in the conduct of the human family, it is fair to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... also 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 ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske

... 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 ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... defenseless; he has not been used for it. His ways are established in that; there is no fear. If he should be ranging at any time, he will return at the first call; but if he does not, my Master, let him go. Be ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost

... 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 ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... suppose, of every parent, 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

... existence and should be, more correctly, correlated with a labor political movement. Early in 1837 came a financial panic. The industrial depression wiped out in a short time every form of labor organization from the trade societies to the National Trades' Union. Labor stood defenseless against the economic storm. In this emergency it turned to politics as a ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman

... always one of silence in the cave man's time. The hours of darkness were those when the creature which walked upon two legs was no longer gliding through the forest with ready club or spear, and when those creatures which used four legs instead of two, especially the defenseless, felt more at ease than in the daytime. The grass-eating animals emerged from the forest into the plateaus and upon the low plains along the river side and the flesh-eaters began again their hunting. It was a time of wild life, and of wild death, for out of the abundance much was taken; there ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... across the Ohio near the mouth of Yellow Creek in 1774. On the Virginia side the murderers made three of the Indians drunk and tomahawked them, and when they had tricked the others into discharging their guns at a mark, and so had them defenseless, they ruthlessly shot them down. Logan's sister, who was the only woman in the party, tried to escape, but a bullet cut short her flight, and she died praying her murderers to have mercy on the babe she held in her arms. They spared it, and he who tells the cruel ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... afterwards the attacking 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 ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston

... who could hide secret sins from bosom friends—even from their wives—were defenseless against this little clerk hanging to a strap—this man with the serious pale face and the large grey eyes who had learned by years of systematic observation to pierce every barrier ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... was God? What did God look like? Of that he had no conception; but he was sure that everything that was good came from God. His good act in refraining from slaying the poor, defenseless old Gomangani; Teeka's love that had hurled her into the embrace of death; his own loyalty to Teeka which had jeopardized his life that she might live. The flowers and the trees were good and beautiful. ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the 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 ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux

... is a worthy man—an estimable man. No oppressor of the poor defenseless Jew is he! Would that Florence abounded in such nobles as the ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... his foe, pouring all the resources of his powerful frame into a dozen fierce and well-directed blows. The spectators upon the benches, however indifferent while the brute had been maltreating a defenseless girl, were now seized with a panic. Two of the men slunk out into the street. The girls rushed to their rooms, threw on their coats and street dresses, and escaped also. The battle continued for several minutes, each man fighting, as he ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... have in my eye the 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, ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... John! I was on the portico near Antonia, and saw it all. It was terrible to hear the shouts of the soldiers, as they strove to hew their way through the defenseless people; the war cries of our own youths, the shrieks and wailings of the women. While the Romans were still striving, our people broke down the galleries connecting Antonia with the Temple; and Florus, seeing that he could not carry out his object, ordered his troops to retire to their quarters ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty

... 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

... it, if for no other reason than to see that the balance of power in Europe was not upset. On August 4, 1914, Sir Edward Grey said in the British House of Commons, "The French fleet is now in the Mediterranean, and the northern coasts of France are defenseless. If a foreign fleet engaged in war against France should come down and battle against those defenseless coasts, we could not stand aside. We felt strongly that France was entitled to know at once whether, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... 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, ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner

... for misgovernment, and furthermore all social injustice, whether by positive act or simple neglect, tends to take toll from the defenseless classes. The more efficient extricate themselves, while the ignorant, the weak, the aged, and chiefly the little children bear the brunt of governmental folly. It is for this reason, together with the passing of materialistic standards ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben

... is responsible? 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 ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur

... eternally on board their plate ships with no permanent base, forced into a wandering life by the destruction of the planet on which they had originally been spawned. But they were raiders now, laying waste defenseless worlds, picking up the wealth of shattered cities in which no native life remained. And their hidden temporary bases were looped about the galaxy, their need for worlds with an atmosphere similar to Terra's as necessary as that ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... 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 easily have equaled the victims of massacres ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume

... 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 ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... perpetrators, the whole nation gave way to a double exasperation: first, that their 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. ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... asked the earl. "The falconets which you have upon the poop can make but a poor resistance to boats that can row around us, and are no doubt furnished with heavy metal. They will quickly perceive that we are aground and defenseless, and will be able to plump their shot into us until they have knocked the good ship to pieces. However, we will fight to the last. It shall not be said that the Earl of Evesham was taken by infidel dogs and ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... what Adeline did. She came that night to Anne's room just as Anne was getting into bed. Unappeased by her defenseless attitude, she attacked ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair

... seemed to be the only human being left alive in a world of wrath and darkness. The rush and roar of the blast, the angry noise of waves breaking hurriedly on the shore, the swirling showers that fell on my defenseless head—all these things were unfelt, unheard by me. There are times in a man's life when mere physical feeling grows numb under the pressure of intense mental agony-when the indignant soul, smarting with the experience of some ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... years thereafter. It seemed ideal even under the Labor Act, which the Negroes learned to endure without complaint. In this ideal state of things it was thought advisable to reduce the militia. This was finally done, leaving the whole island outside of Christiansted defenseless. Forced labor, however, under the disguise of apprenticeship could not but be odious, especially so when the differences of blood and color tended to render irritating the very semblance of restraint, and exaggerate every difficulty of class and position. Hence, these injudicious artificial regulations, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... 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 right ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott

... that these had been built only to resist an army, and so lay with flanks entirely open to a fleet. General Lovell (the able commander who had so often warned the Confederate Government of the danger from the sea) at once evacuated the defenseless city. The best of the younger men were away with the armies. The best of the older men were too few for the storm. And so pandemonium broke loose. Burning boats, blazing cotton, and a howling mob greeted Farragut's arrival. But after the forts ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood

... lay a trap for &c. (deceive) 545. Adj. in danger &c. n.; endangered &c. v.; fraught with danger; dangerous, hazardous, perilous, parlous, periculous|; unsafe, unprotected &c. (safe, protect &c. 664);insecure, . untrustworthy; built upon.sand, on a sandy basis; wildcat. defenseless, fenceless, guardless[obs3], harborless; unshielded; vulnerable, expugnable[obs3], exposed; open to &c. (liable) 177. aux abois[Fr], at bay; on the wrong side of the wall, on a lee shore, on the rocks. at stake, in question; precarious, critical, ticklish; slippery, slippy; hanging by a thread ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... breaking in doors, smashing trunks, boxes, bureaus, and robbing them of all that was valuable, then leaving the house in flames. Helpless women, screaming children, babes in the arms, invalids on beds, jolted and jostled against the surging mob—none to help, none to advise—these defenseless sufferers rushed aimlessly about, their sole purpose being to avoid the flames and seek a place of safety. The fires originated principally in the southern section of the city, and as the fire eat its way up, the howling throng followed, driving ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... Rae, as defenseless as that pretty sister of yours was in the woods there, that afternoon at ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... 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 the warmer we kept an ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris

... Sir 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 of truth ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... victory seemed in their grasp, luck turned. At Jack's next blow the stock of his weapon parted from the barrel, leaving him almost defenseless. At the same time Manthis slipped and collapsed from ...
— The End of Time • Wallace West

... 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 cannot come ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... me to go along?" She was too wretchedly in earnest to be tragic, or gloriously insulted, or anything save dumpy and defenseless and flushed to the red steaminess of ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... it is not 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 ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... Broderick's pistol spoke. Discharged apparently before aim could be taken; his bullet struck the ground at Terry's feet. Broderick, now defenseless, waited quietly. "Two," the word came. Terry, who had taken careful aim, now fired. Broderick staggered, recovered himself. His face was distorted with pain. Slowly he sank to one knee; sidewise upon his ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... 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 ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... 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, and children ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall

... 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 creatures which nature has placed under ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... 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

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

... raiding their neighbours. Their armed bands of hired retainers ravaged, burned, pillaged—the strong against the weak, the shrewd against the simple, the powerful against the defenseless. The power of those savages was purely physical. The power we give to their modern prototype is both physical and moral. They kill the body and poison the souls of the living. The older savage made raids for the necessities of life. We permit the raiders to play their murderous ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... but confess that we all breathed more freely on the receipt of that information, but unfortunately the purpose could not be carried out. The Russians by this time evidently had realized our comparatively defenseless condition and utter lack of ammunition, for that same night we heard two shots ring out, being a signal from our sentinels that they were surprised and that danger was near. I hardly had time to draw my sword, to grasp my revolver with my left ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler

... 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

... 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 ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... cunning, was at an end and that the Germans had won. The Germans behaved with a perfidy that is unmatched in modern history, disregarded the armistice they had signed, and savagely hurled their forces against the defenseless, partially demobilized and trusting Russians. There was nothing left for the Bolsheviki to do. They had delivered Russia to the Germans. In March the "indecent peace" was signed, with what result we know. Bolshevism had been the ally of Prussian militarism. ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... 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

... 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 in ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... colonists had, with great shrewdness, dispatched a fast-sailing ship to Europe upon the day following the battle of Lexington, giving their account of the affair, and representing it as a massacre of defenseless colonists by British troops; and the story thus told excited a sympathy which would not, perhaps, have been extended to them had the real facts of the case been known. Representatives from all the colonies met at Philadelphia to organize ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty

... he was helpless, defenseless, mentally and physically paralyzed from sheer amazement. It was the moment for which his crafty foe had played—and won. The figure darted, forward, its right arm rose and fell. One flicker of starlight on metal, then the ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... 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

... 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

... dogs. Antonia Shimerda liked to go with me, and we used to wonder a great deal about these birds of subterranean habit. We had to be on our guard there, for rattlesnakes were always lurking about. They came to pick up an easy living among the dogs and owls, which were quite defenseless against them; took possession of their comfortable houses and ate the eggs and puppies. We felt sorry for the owls. It was always mournful to see them come flying home at sunset and disappear under the earth. But, after all, we felt, winged things ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather

... and marched off, three of the most surprised housebreakers that were ever captured; and right here we have a word to say. There is nothing romantic and daring in housebreaking. It is one of the most atrocious crimes on the criminal calendar. It is simply terrible to think of people defenseless and helpless in their own homes and beds when masked men, prepared to do murder, steal in to rob them. There is no palliation for this offense, for there is no crime, save that of forgery, that is conducted with so much forethought, decision and calculation—yes, ...
— Oscar the Detective - Or, Dudie Dunne, The Exquisite Detective • Harlan Page Halsey

... 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, disgraced his house and ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth

... 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 ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... 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 had been ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich

... 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

... of the Carthaginian fleet 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 ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... Heaven help me! Here is the king's brother-in-law, Sansthanaka. Just because one monk committed an offense, now, wherever he sees a monk, whether it is the same one or not, he bores a hole in his nose and drives him around like a bullock. Where shall a defenseless man find a defender? But after all, the blessed Lord Buddha ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka

... vindication. To my adversary, therefore, falls the part which ministers to your gratification, while to me there is only left that which, I may almost say, is distasteful to all. And yet, if I do not speak of myself and my own conduct, I shall appear defenseless against his charges, and without proof that my honors were well earned. This, therefore, I must do; but it shall be with moderation. And bear in mind that the blame of my dwelling on personal topics must justly rest upon him who has ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... 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

... 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

... I should do this!" Lichonin exclaimed warmly and even smote himself on the chest with his free hand. "Then you know me very badly! I'm too honest a man to be deceiving a defenseless girl. No! I'll exert all my powers and all my soul to educate your mind, to widen your outlook, to compel your poor heart, which has suffered so, to forget all the wounds and wrongs which life has inflicted upon it. I will be a father and a brother to you! ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... any politic intentions of his which bordered on strategy, and carried him on as by gravitation. A shadow in his life had always been that his flock ended in mutton—that a day came and found every shepherd an arrant traitor to his defenseless sheep. His first feeling now was one of pity for the untimely fate of these gentle ewes and their ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... epitheted college bunch he'll show her the door. Says he's been worked and he's through. Says he's going to give you the limit and, if possible, he's going to give you enough to keep you in all vacation instead of letting you loose on a defenseless world all summer. That's how strong you are up at ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch

... 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 ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)

... it? You must not forget that you had just leaped into the lion's den defenseless, because you loved me. Could I deny you then? Until that moment I had been the Princess adamant; in a second's time you swept away every safeguard, every battlement, and I surrendered as only a woman can. But it really sounded shocking, ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... that had torn into his vitals and devoured him; of fiends 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 Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... told how Harvey's men, that had attacked and taken prisoners the "Law and Order" robbers that pillaged the defenseless village of Grasshopper Falls, were themselves taken prisoners by the United States troops. These were tried for treason in the Pro-slavery courts, and were condemned to various terms of imprisonment, varying from six months to six years. They were kept in ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... execute the act. As you read this, it will easily prove to you my insanity. The style and the ideas are incoherent enough—I can see that myself. But I cannot keep myself from being either crazy or an idiot; and, as things are, from whom should I ask pity? I am defenseless against the invisible enemy who is tightening his coils around me. I should be no better armed against him even if I saw him, or had seen him. Oh, if he would but kill me, devil take him! Death, death, once for all! But I stop. I have raved to you long enough. I say raved, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... engaged in a heated altercation with a second Austrian soldier. The plan 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 ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes

... than she betrayed. It was not through the groping speech which formed their apparent medium of communication that she imbibed her information: she found it in the air, she extracted it from Durham's look and manner, she caught it in the turn of her sister-in-law's defenseless eyes—for in her presence Madame de Malrive became Fanny Frisbee again!—she put it together, in short, out of just such unconsidered indescribable trifles as differentiated the quiet felicity of her dress from Nannie and ...
— Madame de Treymes • Edith Wharton

... 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 toes just off ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey

... the situation was changed if there were outlaws about. We were three defenseless women, and here was a man brought providentially to us! She asked him at once to join our party and look after us until we got to civilization again, or at least until the roads were dry ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... sank that day into the bosom of the prairies, a fearful storm of fire and blood burst upon the defenseless settlers and missionaries. Like the dread cyclone, it came, unheralded, and like that much-to-be-dreaded monster of the prairies, it left desolation and death in its pathway. The Sioux arose against the whites and ...
— Among the Sioux - A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas • R. J. Creswell

... they became very chummy, and before a week went by it was as if they had been friends for life. When Peter asked Miss Frisbie if he might kiss her, she answered coyly that he might, but after he had kissed her a few times she explained to him that she was a self-supporting woman, alone and defenseless in the world, and she had nobody to speak for her but herself; she must tell him that she had always been a respectable woman, and that she wanted him to know that before he kissed her any more. And Peter ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... 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 ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... flattering opinion of us," Franklin answered. "We, who are the injured parties, have not the baseness to entertain it. You will forgive me for reminding you that the King's paternal solicitude has been rather trying. It has burned our defenseless towns in mid-winter; if has incited the savages to massacre our farmers' in the back country; it has driven us to a declaration of independence. Britain and America are now distinct states. Peace can be considered only on that basis. You wish to prevent ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller

... Mediterranean and mountain and island and Cannes backgrounds. Automobile hold-ups with pistols barking, the man and the maid in the woods and on the terrace, the villain assaulting and the hero rescuing the defenseless woman, the heroine jumping from a rock into the sea, and clinging to an upturned boat—these are commonplace events on ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons

... at her, feeling himself disarmed by her caressing words and melancholy smile. That cold, harsh something, which he had in his heart against her, was now melting before the warm light of her eyes. The woman now seemed to him small, defenseless, like a child. She was saying something in a gentle voice as though imploring, and forever smiling, but he paid no attention ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky

... and shipyards to the breaking point, Germany could not catch up with her great rival. The first half of the new year saw no matching of the grand fleets. It did produce a few gallant combats, and was marked by a melancholy succession of German submarine attacks on defenseless craft. The sacrifice of lives among neutrals and the Allies cast a ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... often they are only transitory fires: one destroys another, and all are absorbed by the great blaze of the creative spirit. But if the heat of the furnace ceases to fill the soul, then the soul is left defenseless against the passions without which it cannot live: it must have passion, it creates passion: and the passions will devour the soul ...—and then, besides the bitter desire that harrows the flesh, there is the need of tenderness which drives a man who ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... covered with soft gray fur, like that of a rabbit, and sleep all day long concealed in hollow trees. The face is also marked with white patches and stripes, giving it a rather carnivorous or cat like aspect, which, perhaps, serves as a protection, by causing the defenseless creature to be taken for an arboreal tiger cat or some such ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various

... despair were fading away, 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

... and then being of gentle birth, and unminded to strike a defenseless female of uncertain years, I ran; I ran home and wrote a chapter in my book ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... 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

... Snail whom I myself have rendered defenseless by breaking her shell is nothing for a warrior to boast about; but we shall soon see the Carabus display his daring. I offer a Pine-chafer, in the pink of strength, to the Golden Beetle, whose appetite has been ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... respects, or to make my acquaintance. I have passed under his nest within a few feet of his mate and brood, when he sat near by on a branch eying me sharply, but without opening his beak; but the moment I raised my hand toward his defenseless household, his anger and indignation ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... then spoke of a terrible misfortune to which she had been exposed. This event, which was indeed terrible, was nothing less than violence and robbery committed on a fugitive woman defenseless and alone, by a band at the head of which was the famous Marquis de Maubreuil, [A French political adventurer, born in Brittany, 1782; died 1855.] who had been equerry of the King of Westphalia. I will recur in treating of the events of 1814 to this disgraceful affair, and will ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... colossal which was common to most of the despots shows itself on the largest scale. He undertook, at the cost of 300,000 golden florins, the construction of gigantic dikes, to divert in case of need the Mincio from Mantua and the Brenta from Padua, and thus to render these cities defenseless. It is not impossible, indeed, that he thought of draining away the lagoons of Venice. He founded that most wonderful of all convents, the Certosa of Pavia and the cathedral of Milan, 'which exceeds in size and splendor all the ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... be a long and hard climb, we started about sunrise, taking a rifle with us; not that we expected to use it, but because it is not good to be entirely defenseless in those wild, out-of-the-way places. Following at first our little creek, we went on up and up, taking it slowly, until presently the pines began to thin out, the weather-beaten trees, gnarled, twisted and stunted, becoming few and far between, and pretty soon we left even ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp

... such hollow victory as the other Hexan vessel had won over the defenseless Arcturus, the small stranger flashed nearer and nearer that huge and featureless football of armor steel. Within range, she launched her flaming plane of energy, but this time that Jovian sheet of force did not encounter unprotected and non-resisting steel. Upon the outer ray-screen, flaming ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... 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 open. ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... suggest a "few eats for some chaps who'd dropped in" as casually as though Janet were not already on the verge of explosion. Of course she would prepare the lunch, stabbing the bread-saw viciously into the defenseless loaf and muttering dark things as she assembled something she called "old doves" on a big Sheffield platter. Janet couldn't cook at all but she could arrange things as beautifully as her ancestors did—and they ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke

... 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 a cold, fresh ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill

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

... they have 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 ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... Vodell in 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

... undeveloped to suck for itself. As it gets older the little opossum or kangaroo emerges from the pouch in the pleasanter part of the day and in the absence of danger. It returns to the mother's pocket as soon as it becomes cold or a cry from its parent warns it of its defenseless position. ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker

... and despised, and hated, nevertheless he is a man. His God and thine has stamped on his forehead his title to his inalienable rights in characters that can be read by every intelligent being. Pitiless storms of outrage may have beaten upon his defenseless head and he may have descended through ages of oppression, yet he is a man. God made him such, and his brother cannot unmake him. Woe, woe to him who attempts to commit the ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... the sullen pass, high-crowned with snow, Where Afghans cower with eyes of gleaming hate. He hurls himself against the hidden foe. They try to rally — ah, too late, too late! Again, defenseless, with fierce eyes that wait For death, he stands, like baited bull at bay, And flouts the Boers, ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service

... 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

... the stern denunciation, the adhering curse, of the outraged and so-soon-to-be-childless mother, he found the just and age-old protest, the patient faith in the eventual triumph of the proletariat—of the defenseless poor as against the callous self-seeking and sensuality of the securely guarded rich. By the fact of his deformity he was emancipated from the delusions of his class, was made one, in right of the suffering and humiliation of it, with the dull-coloured ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... her. Even after we had returned home they would give me no rest, but would go on talking about her all night, and calling her their Glasha, and declaring themselves to be in love with "the canary-bird of their hearts." My defenseless self, too, they would plague about the woman, for I was as young as they. What a figure I must have cut with them on the fourth tier of the gallery! Yet, I never got a sight of more than just a corner of the ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... 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 yell ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... the advocate of the most violent measures, was doubly bound to stand forward in defense of his king and brother, all fled, setting the first example of that base emigration which eventually left the king defenseless in the midst of his enemies. The Baron de Breteuil and some of the ministers made similar provision for their own safety; though it may be said, as some extenuation of their ignoble flight, that they had no longer any official duties to detain them, since the ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... I stooped for my hat. To tell the truth, I was rather afraid to expose myself in such a defenseless attitude, but the Countess preserved her self control. The butler opened the door. I bowed, and left the Countess regarding me through the maimed "starers." Then I found the butler smiling. He probably knew the signs of the ...
— Dolly Dialogues • Anthony Hope

... ended, Carteret immediately put into press an extra edition of the Morning Chronicle, which was soon upon the streets, giving details of the crime, which was characterized as an atrocious assault upon a defenseless old lady, whose age and sex would have protected her from harm at the hands of any one but a brute in the lowest human form. This event, the Chronicle suggested, had only confirmed the opinion, which had been of late growing upon the white people, that drastic efforts were necessary ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... 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 ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... insisted that it was you and not your brother who actually did the deed! Unhappily I listened to your brother! See now the awful result of this mistake! Go you now to this heartless Princess whom men call Flower o' the World or else our poor defenseless city will have to pay ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore

... you were a being from another planet that wanted to take over here. Suppose, further, that you were rather small and relatively defenseless. To finish the suppositions, suppose you were a positive telepath, with not only the ability to read minds, but also the ability to create visual and tactile hallucinations. How ...
— See? • Edward G. Robles

... shrinking, which all will understand, from drawing bow in cold blood on men so utterly unsuspicious and defenseless, even though in the very act of devilish cruelty—for devilish cruelty it was, as three or four drivers armed with whips, lingered up and down the slowly staggering file of Indians, and avenged every moment's lagging, even every stumble, by a blow of the cruel manati-hide, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... of terrorising the population, the Germans have trained them to throw up their hands as soon as any one comes in sight, in order to prove that they are unarmed and defenseless. And the way they do it, the abject fear that is evident, shows that failure to comply with the rule is ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... those he despised as well as hated, and to these he was 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 ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara

... Europe. Grandson of the late King Christian of Denmark, the young monarch is also nephew to King George of Greece, the Dowager Empress of Russia, and Alexandria of England, a grand-nephew to the late Oscar of Sweden, son-in-law to King Edward VII, and cousin to the Czar. To a relatively defenseless country like Norway, this ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough



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



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