a. [f. FOOT sb. + -LESS. Cf. FEETLESS.] Having no foot or feet.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVIII. cxv. (1495), 856. Amonge wormes some ben fotelesse: as adders and serpentes.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 6475. Mony foteles freike of his fell dinttes.
1591. Sylvester, Du Bartas, I. v. 88.
| Som in their breast (as Crabs): some head-less are, | |
| Foot-less, and finn-less (as the banefull Hare, | |
| And heat-full Oyster) in a heap confus’d, | |
| Their parts unparted, in themselves diffus’d. |
1675. Hobbes, Odyssey (1677), 45.
| About him will his footless Sea-calves lie, | |
| And of the brine abominably smell. |
1849. H. Miller, Footpr. Creat., ix. 157. Among these degraded races, that of the footless serpent, which ‘goeth upon its belly,’ has been long noted by the theologian as a race typical, in its condition and nature, of an order of hopelessly degraded beings, borne down to the dust by a clinging curse.
1886. W. J. Tucker, E. Europe, 114. ‘What do you think of us?’ asked the footless officer.
b. of things (e.g., a stocking).
1611. Cotgr., Breusse, a dish, or footlesse cup.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xx. (1856), 159. Some footless stockings, tied up at the lower end to serve as socks.
c. transf. and fig.
1795. Coleridge, Eolian Harp, 23.
| Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers, | |
| Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise. |
1855. Tennyson, Maud, XVIII. viii.
| But now by this my love has closed her sight | |
| And given false death her hand, and stol’n away | |
| To dreamful wastes where footless fancies dwell | |
| Among the fragments of the golden day. |
