a. [UN-1 7.]
1. Unable to help; not rendering help.
1593. Shaks., 2 Hen. VI., II. i. 218. Euen so my selfe bewayles good Glosters case With sad vnhelpefull teares, and with dimn’d eyes.
1643–5. Milton, Divorce, II. xvii. A blamelesse creature,… to whose ease you cannot adde the tithe of one small atome, but by letting alone your unhelpfull surgery.
1856. Miss Yonge, Daisy Chain, I. xvii. Standing unhelpful, when the others were busy bringing in the benches.
1880. Swinburne, Stud. Shaks., 62. As yet the one contemporary book … remains … inaccessible and unhelpful to students.
2. Helpless, shiftless. Also absol.
1855. I. Taylor, Restor. Belief (1856), 290. The luckless, the unhelpful, the feeble,… receive such help as their several cases call for.
Hence Unhelpfulness.
1626. Bp. Hall, Contempl., O. T., XXI. v. To take vengeance … for this cold unhelpfulnesse to his distressed Church.
