a. [f. COMFORT sb. + -LESS.] Without comfort.

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  † 1.  Without relief, aid, or resource; unrelieved, helpless, desolate. Obs. (exc. as occas. implied in sense 3 or 4.)

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a. 1400[?].  Chester Pl. (Shaks. Soc.), II. 27. I will not leeve you comfortles [John xiv. 18; so in Coverdale 1535, Bps. Bible 1569, and 1611].

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1568.  Grafton, Chron., II. 207. All the Barons of Fraunce had forsaken her … and so she was left all comfortlesse.

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1568.  Bible (Bishops’), Ps. xii. 5. For the comfortlesse troubles sake of the needy.

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1639.  Bury Wills (1850), 172. All my houshold fledd from me and left me … comfortles.

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1725.  Pope, Odyss., XV. 380. Sole, and all comfortless, he wastes away.

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  † 2.  Without courage or strength, spiritless. Obs.

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1387.  Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), VII. 25. Þe kyng erle was al comfortlees, and nyh deed for fere.

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c. 1400.  Rom. Rose, 4412. Comfortles the deth I drede.

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  3.  Destitute or devoid of mental comfort, consolation, or solace; of persons (now rare), unconsoled, inconsolable; of actions, states, etc., attended with no comfort.

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c. 1460.  Sir R. Ros, Dame Sanz Mercy, 461, in Pol. Rel. & L. Poems (1866), 67. To comforte hem that lyve al comfortlees.

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1590.  Shaks., Com. Err., V. i. 80. Melancholly, Kinsman to grim and comfortlesse dispaire.

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1667.  Milton, P. L., XI. 760. Thou stoodst … comfortless, as when a Father mourns His children.

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1794.  Wordsw., Guilt & Sorrow, iii. Perplexed and comfortless he gazed around.

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1803.  Southey, Lett. (1856), I. 240. We had, indeed, a gloomy and comfortless parting.

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1878.  Seeley, Stein, II. 394. My account of this comfortless time.

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  † b.  actively. Giving no comfort. Obs. rare.

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1588.  Shaks., Tit. A., III. i. 251. That kisse is comfortlesse, As frozen water to a starued snake.

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1632.  Lithgow, Trav., X. (1682), 468. Hunger, Vermine, and Tortures, being my Comfortless Companions.

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  4.  Devoid of physical comfort; dreary, cheerless. (The most usual current sense.)

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1576.  Fleming, Panoplie Ep., 297. Inhabitable woodes and comfortlesse caves.

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1646.  Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., VI. v. A deplorable and comfortlesse Winter.

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1754.  H. Walpole, Lett. to Chute, 14 May. The country is cold and comfortless.

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1846.  McCulloch, Acc. Brit. Empire (1854), I. 672. Cold and comfortless habitations.

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