rudderless

[ ruhd-er-lis ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

adjective

(of a boat, ship, or aircraft) lacking a rudder, the device or structure used to change direction and steer:
I love the story of Columba, a priest in sixth-century Ireland, who got into a rudderless boat and let God and providence take him where he was meant to be.
lacking purpose, leadership, moral principles, or anything else that might provide direction; aimless:
The people are drifting and rudderless, without a vision to unify and motivate them and without a shared set of values.

In a party without a frontrunner, and seemingly rudderless, Bush is the closest thing the GOP has to a consensus candidate.

But they will leave the country rudderless, the victory will be hollow, and the problems will be left to fester.

It could wind up being asked to form a coalition government—and probably will fail, leaving the country rudderless in the storm.

Foer is the kind of adult for whom a pre-Huggies life was rudderless.

It is hard to conceive a soul entirely cut loose from the old bones, and roving rudderless about eternity.

A rudderless little bark, she had been set adrift in so inviting, so welcoming a sea twenty years ago!

And yet we stand, and have stood for months, as a rudderless ship foundering in the trough of tremendous seas.

Theories without fact leave man in a rudderless boat; he gets nowhere, he merely drifts.

She glanced up at the blue sky, where snowy clouds drifted like rudderless ships at sea.

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