helplessness

helpless +‎ -ness

helplessness (usually uncountable, plural helplessnesses)

1. The state of being helpless.
2. A feeling of inadequacy or impotence.
   • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 639762314, page 0105:

     Captain Edward Carlisle, soldier as he was, martinet as he was, felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her steady gaze, her alluring smile ; he could not tell what this prisoner might do.

• impotence

• powerlessness

• helplessness in An American Dictionary of the English Language, by Noah Webster, 1828.
• helplessness in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• “impotence” in Roget's Thesaurus, T. Y. Crowell Co., 1911.