Modifies a noun

• animal: Whilst you prey on defenseless animals, you leave endless suffering in your wake!

• people: Right now we watch high-tech weapons slaughter the defenseless people of Iraq.

• civilian: We will not back down in the face of attacks, either on us or on defenseless civilians.

• population: The use of terror on the defenseless civilian population was neither an isolated incident nor a few soldiers acting illegally.

• space: Digital intruders are piercing defenseless air space at corporations, public Wi-Fi hot spots and homes to gain illegal entry to computers.

• girl: I would like to know why you did what you did to three defenseless, helpless young girls.

Modifying Another Word

• completely: Such attacks have been witnessed in emergency rooms, where doctors were completely defenseless to the oncoming arrest and unable to resuscitate the patient.

• not: We are not defenseless, and there are many significant efforts underway to respond to the cyber threat.

Used with adjective complement

• render: We have been rendered defenseless: we are without rights: we have become the pariahs of the world.

• leave: The Britons, dependent for centuries on the protection of Rome, were left defenseless.