impotent
not potent; lacking power or ability.
utterly unable (to do something).
without force or effectiveness.
lacking bodily strength or physically helpless.
(of a male) unable to attain or sustain a penile erection.
(especially of a male) sterile.
Obsolete. without restraint.
an impotent person: therapy for sexual impotents.
Origin of impotent
1Other words for impotent
Other words from impotent
- im·po·tent·ly, adverb
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use impotent in a sentence
All while the international community observed, if not passively, impotently.
“Poker should not be played in a house with women,” Mitch explains impotently.
He saw mounted officers and parading soldiers, and groups of firemen standing impotently by their hose and engines.
Ancestors | Gertrude AthertonNeither did he like attending the agonies of child-birth, or standing impotently at the bed of the dying.
Fidelity | Susan GlaspellWhen the sun tinged all the hilltops golden yellow, he turned and shook his fist impotently at the camp far beneath him.
The Happy Family | Bertha Muzzy Bower
Sluggishly, reluctantly, impotently, the spruce logs followed one another round and round the circuit of the great stone pot.
The Backwoodsmen | Charles G. D. RobertsYet the chagrin of having at once so violently and so impotently belittled himself added one sting more to his fate.
Bonaventure | George Washington Cable
British Dictionary definitions for impotent
/ (ˈɪmpətənt) /
(when postpositive, often takes an infinitive) lacking sufficient strength; powerless
(esp of males) unable to perform sexual intercourse: See erectile impotence
obsolete lacking self-control; unrestrained
Derived forms of impotent
- impotence, impotency or impotentness, noun
- impotently, adverb
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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