a. [f. VOICE sb. + -LESS.]
1. Having no voice; destitute of the power of utterance; uttering no words or speech; dumb, mute.
In group (b) applied to immaterial things.
(a) 1535. Coverdale, Acts viii. 32. As a lambe voycelesse before his sherer so opened he not his mouth.
1817. Shelley, Rev. Islam, X. xii. Peace in the silent streets! save when the cries Of victims to their fiery judgement led, Made pale their voiceless lips.
1849. De Quincey, Eng. Mail-Coach, III. iv. Wks. 1890, XIII. 325. Clinging to the horns of the altar, voiceless she stood.
1859. Tennyson, Enid, 1115. Mute As creatures voiceless thro’ the fault of birth.
1873. Black, Pr. Thule, ii. Lavender did not care to remain among those voiceless monuments of a forgotten past.
absol. 1855. Singleton, Virgil, II. 108. He of the voiceless both a council calls And gains the knowledge of their lives.
1893. Max Pemberton, Iron Pirate, xxiv. The men waited for some seconds silent as the voiceless.
(b.) 1816. Byron, Monody on Sheridan, 10. Who hath not shared that calm so still and deep, The voiceless thought which would not speak but weep.
1883. Fortn. Rev., Dec., 766. It is the public good which is so often powerless and voiceless in presence of the audacity of private wrong.
1891. Farrar, Darkn. & Dawn, liv. The deadly wrong … had excited an indignation … which, though it was voiceless, had made itself felt.
b. Having no voice in the control or management of affairs.
a. 1634. Coke, Inst., IV. i. (1648), 5. The Proctors of the Clergy … were voicelesse Assistants;… and having no voices, and so many learned Bishops having voices, their presence is not now holden necessary.
c. Failing, unable or not attempting, to express one’s feelings or opinions; silent, mute. Also absol.
1863. J. G. Holland, Lett. to Joneses, ix. (1864), 129. The world will never come to you … you must go to the world or die voiceless.
1884. Pall Mall G., 28 June, 1/1. The surrender of the voiceless, helpless masses of the population to their Turkish taskmasters.
1890. C. W. R. Cooke, 4 Y. in Parl., 69. By the voiceless I mean the men who have the capacity to speak, and the desire, but have missed their opportunities.
2. Characterized by the absence of sound; in or on which no voice or sound is heard; silent, still.
In this and the two following senses chiefly poet. or rhet.
1815. Shelley, Alastor, 662. Motionless, As their own voiceless earth and vacant air.
1820. Byron, Juan, III. lxxxvi. On thy voiceless shore The heroic lay is tuneless now.
1850. S. Dobell, Roman, viii. 27. The sweet content of voiceless woods After the nightingale.
1868. Lockyer, Guillemin’s Heavens (ed. 3), 156. To an inhabitant of the Earth, our light-giver by night would appear … but a silent and voiceless desert.
3. Not expressed or uttered by the voice or in speech; unspoken, unuttered.
1816. Byron, Ch. Har., III. xcvii. I live and die unheard, With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.
1839. Longf., Footsteps of Angels, ix. Uttered not, yet comprehended, Is the spirit’s voiceless prayer.
1862. T. C. Grattan, Beaten Paths, II. 218. A dead silence followed the fall of the curtain; and I felt, though I could not hear, the voiceless verdict of ‘damnation.’
1865. C. Stanford, Symb. Christ, xi. (1878), 296. Secret as the voiceless language of the soul.
4. Characterized by, or causing, loss of speech or vocal utterance; speechless.
1818. Byron, Ch. Har., IV. lxxix. The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe.
1843. Chambers’s Edin. Jrnl., 47/2. Her lips parted with a voiceless agony.
1879. Tourgee, Fool’s Err., xxxiv. 225. Dumb mouths which spoke of the voiceless agony of death.
5. Phonology. Produced or uttered without voice or vocalic tone; surd. Said esp. of certain consonants in opposition to VOICED ppl. a. 3.
1867. A. M. Bell, Visible Sp., 67. Where the voiceless correspondent of a vocal consonant is separately heard.
1874. Ellis, E. E. Pronunc., IV. xi. 1333. The great relations between voiced and voiceless consonants.
1877. Sweet, Handbk. Phonetics, 75. Consonants with voiceless stop and breath off-glide are called ‘breath’ or ‘voiceless’ stops.
