powerless
adjective
Simple meaning
Lacking legal authority.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
powerluhsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpaʊɚləs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Lacking sufficient power or strength.
Without electricity or electrical power.
Lacking legal authority.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Lacking sufficient power or strength.
Used this way, powerless is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: lacking sufficient power or strength
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.