a. [f. WATCH sb. + -LESS.]
1. a. Keeping no watch. b. Unwatched, unguarded.
1622. Gataker, Spirituall Watch (ed. 2), 124. There is great difference betweene the watchfull and the watchlesse Christian.
1721. Cibber, Perolla, I. i. How cam’st thou first to set Thy watchless Eyes upon this fatal Wretch.
1842. Proc. Berw. Nat. Club, II. 8. The hills are covered with flocks of sheep … browsing watchless, because they know no danger.
1852. Rock, Ch. of Fathers, III. I. 199. If … it happen with them, in some watchless moment, that they stumble.
2. Of a night: Not broken into watches; having no wakeful intervals.
1850. Blackie, Æschylus, I. 27. To their hearts’ content They live, and through the watchless night prolong Sound slumbers.
