at the mercy of | Idiomator

Meaning: (idiomatic)In the power of;defenceless/defenselessagainst.The ball game is scheduled for Saturday, but we're stillat the mercy ofthe weather.1897December (indicated as1898),Winston Churchill, chapter I, inThe Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.:The Macmillan Company; London:Macmillan & Co., Ltd.,→OCLC:The stories did not seem to me to touch life. […] They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off,at the mercy ofthe operator.2024March 20, Richard Foster, “Vital experience in an open-air classroom”, inRAIL, number1005, page60:Most of Britain's railways were built in the Victorian era. Railway routes were not onlyat the mercy ofgeography, but also of local landowners who wanted to minimise the impact on their estates. Construction was carried out by navvies armed with picks and shovels, with very little understanding of the underlying geology.

Examples:

EN: Suzanne is at the mercy of the stampeding horses!
ES: Suzanne queda a merced de la furia de los animales!
EN: They lead poor Glaucus to the arena to leave him at the mercy of lions.
ES: Al día siguiente deberá combatir con las fieras en la arena.
EN: The Jerusalem Christians remained at the mercy of the victor.
ES: El Jerusalén cristiano quedaba a merced del vencedor.
EN: And thus, in three days at the latest, the leader of the Party of Polish Independence will be at the mercy of Your Majesty"
ES: "...así, de este modo, en tres días a más tardar, el lider del Partido de la Independecia Polaca estará a merced de Vuestra Majestad"
EN: He's the one who stole your money and left you at the mercy of that villain.
ES: Él es el que robó su dinero y la dejó a merced del villano.
EN: So long as the institution of private property exists .. The workers will be at the mercy of the property-owning classes.
ES: Mientras las riquezas esté en manos de unos pocos los hombres siempre estarán a merced de los que la posean.
EN: Marvelous age we live in, at the mercy of twenty million morons with index fingers.
ES: Qué maravillosa época la que vivimos. Estamos a merced de 20 millones de imbéciles que le dan al dedo índice.
EN: Yet you went off on some wild goose chase after a pirate... leaving your capital at the mercy of the enemy.
ES: Y aun asi salio tras un pirata en una caceria sin frutos... dejando la capital a merced del enemigo.
EN: I believe that this city is at the mercy of a madman whose body is an engine of destruction.
ES: Creo que esta ciudad está a merced de un loco... cuyo cuerpo es una máquina de destrucción.
EN: Italy had not been more utterly at the mercy of the enemy since the last of the Roman legions fled from Attila.
ES: Italia no había estado más a la merced de su enemigo desde que la última de las legiones romanas huía de Atila.
EN: Madame. Have you ever been at the mercy of loneliness?
ES: ¿Alguna vez se ha encontrado a merced de la soledad?
EN: If it is admitted that a mistake has been made we, the general staff, will be at the mercy of every scandal paper in France.
ES: Si llegáramos a admitir que cometimos un error todo el estado mayor quedará a merced del periodismo del Francia.
EN: The whole of the city is at the mercy of a gang of criminals... headed by a man who calls himself"the Kid."
ES: Toda la ciudad está a merced de una banda de criminales... dirigida por un hombre que se hace llamar "The Kid".
EN: I'll see to it that your worthless carcass lies sizzling in the desert sun... at the mercy of the vultures.
ES: ¿Lo ha comprendido? - Sí, señor. Sí, señor.
EN: So you would leave us at the mercy of our enemies?
ES: O sea que nos deja a merced de nuestro enemigos.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).