1. Without belief, confidence, or trust; unbelieving. Const. † of, in.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 6517 (Cott.). To þis fait-les lede Manna fel.
1611. Bible, John xx. 27. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and beholde my hands, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and bee not faithlesse, but beleeuing.
1681. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), I. 123. The last speech of Mr. Colledge hath for some time afforded variety of discourse; the court party doe give no creditt to it, yet the more sober sort of people are not altogether faithlesse as to his innocency.
1826. E. Irving, Babylon, II. VI. 74. Surely men are not now more faithless of Armageddon, than the Antediluvians were of the deluge.
1842. Lowell, Sonnets, xvi.
| And always ’t is the saddest sight to see | |
| An old man faithless in Humanity. |
1830. Tennyson, In Mem., cvi.
| Ring out the want, the care, the sin, | |
| The faithless coldness of the times; | |
| Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, | |
| But ring the fuller minstrel in. |
b. Without religious faith; unbelieving. Of a heathen or a Jew: Without Christian faith. Also absol. The faithless: unbelievers. Now rare.
1534. More, On the Passion, Wks. 1320/1. That dede doone by yt faythlesse is not meritorius at al.
1548. Udall, etc., Erasm. Par. Rom., Prol. sig. †† i. Else shalt thou remaine euermore faithlesse.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., III. iii. 34.
| He in his furie all shall over-ronne, | |
| And holy Church with faithlesse handes deface. |
1628. Wither, Brit. Rememb., VI. 252.
| But, we (like Ægypt) in rebellion be, | |
| And, full as faithlesse as the Iewes, are we. |
absol. 1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., III. (1586), 138 b. A great number of others imagined by the faithlesse.
2. Destitute of good faith, unfaithful, insincere; false to vows, etc., perfidious, disloyal. Const. to.
1362. Langl., P. Pl., A. X. 135. Fals folk and Feiþles, þeoues and lyȝers.
1399. Political Poems (1859), I. 377.
| The ffortune that ffallyn is | |
| to ffeitheles peple. |
1613. Shaks., Hen. VIII., II. i. 123. A most vnnatural and faithlesse Seruice.
1678. Wanley, Wond. Lit. World, V. ii. § 81. 472/2. A man he was of a fierce, bloody, and faithless disposition.
1725. Pope, Odyss., XIV. 322.
| Domestic in his faithless roof I staid, | |
| Till the swift sun his annual circle made. |
1786. Burke, W. Hastings, Wks. 1842. II. 214. The dangerous, faithless, and ill-concerted projects of the … council of Bombay.
1807. Crabbe, The Parish Register, II. 142.
| The faithless flatterer then his vows forgot, | |
| A captious tyrant or a noisy sot. |
1839. Keightley, Hist. Eng., II. 65. The queen [Catherine Howard] persisted in affirming that she had never been faithless to the royal bed.
3. That cannot he trusted or relied on; unstable, treacherous, shifting, delusive.
1603. Shaks., Meas. for M., III. i. 137. Oh faithlesse Coward, oh dishonest wretch.
1738. Johnson, London, 239. The midnight murd’rer bursts the faithless bar.
1766. Goldsm., Hermit, 10.
| ‘Forbear, my son!’ the Hermit cries, | |
| ‘To tempt the dangerous gloom; | |
| For yonder faithless phantom flies | |
| To lure thee to thy doom.’ |
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xlix. (1856), 466. On every side, striving to tear us from this faithless anchorage, are the unquiet, grinding floes.
Hence Faithlessly adv., in a faithless manner.
1643. Prynne, Treachery & Disloyalty, App. 218. Had we … not faithlessely betrayed, but sincerely discharged the severall trusts reposed in us.
