Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

I had learnt myself to be a feeble, backboneless fighter, conquered by the first serious assault of evil, a creature of mean fears, slave to every crack of the devil's whip, a feeder with swine.

From Paul Kelver, a Novel by Jerome, Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka)

I’m only a penniless, backboneless, hand-to-mouth wretch, living on the work of laborious insects.”

From Children of the Mist by Phillpotts, Eden

Hypnotism against the will is a myth; except perhaps in here and there a backboneless person who could be influenced any way, without hypnosis or anything of the kind.

From Psychical Miscellanea Being Papers on Psychical Research, Telepathy, Hypnotism, Christian Science, etc. by Hill, J. Arthur

Characterless, backboneless, negative kind of fellows with neither wisdom nor stature abound.

From London's Underworld by Holmes, Thomas

Low down, where the records of life begin, we find an era of backboneless animals only, and the animal forms there found, though various, are all humble in their respective lines of gradation.

From The World's Greatest Books — Volume 15 — Science by Hammerton, John Alexander, Sir