Windless

a. [f. WIND sb.¹ + -LESS.]

  1.  Breathless, out of breath. Now rare.

a. 1400–50.  Wars Alex., 1271. Sa waike & so wyndles & wery for-foȝten.

1570.  Foxe, A. & M. (ed. 2), 2126/1. His accuser … came … in such post speede, that in a maner he was wyndlesse entryng into the Bishops chamber.

1609.  Holland, Amm. Marcell., 114. With all the speed I could make I returned all windlesse for hast.

1643.  Trapp, Comm. Gen. xlix. 27. Panting and windless as a tired Woolf.

1894.  J. A. Steuart, In Day of Battle, i. He was stupefied and windless before the smile of disdain had time to leave his face.

  2.  Free from wind; not exposed to or stirred by the wind, in or upon which no wind blows.

  In first quot. applied to wind supposed to be pent underground and to cause earthquakes: = not causing any movement in the atmosphere.

1591.  Sylvester, Du Bartas, I. iii. 480. When steeples stagger, and huge mountains tremble With wind-less wind [orig. Le vent sans faire vent].

1802.  Mawe, Min. Derbysh., Gloss. (E.D.S.), s.v., A place in a mine where the air is bad or short … is then said to be windless.

1818.  Shelley, Rosal. & Helen, 1106. The windless sky.

1843.  Ruskin, Mod. Paint., II. III. iv. § 35. 251. Colder and more quiet than a windless sea under the moon of midnight.

1855.  M. Arnold, New Sirens, 146. In some windless valley.

  † 3.  Not causing flatulence. Obs. rare.

1562.  Turner, Herbal, II. 85 b. Phasiolus … of Dioscorides is wyndy…, & y^e other ar flatuum expertes y^t is windlesse.

  Hence Windlessly adv.; Windlessness.

1897.  Edin. Rev., Oct., 387. The dawn broke windlessly over the dark mountain pass.

1916.  E. F. Benson, David Blaize, x. The sea slept in the windlessness of this August weather.