a. Also 5–6 lyveles, 6–8 liveles, -less(e. [OE. lífléas, f. líf LIFE sb. + -léas -LESS.] Having no life.
1. That has ceased to live; deprived of life; dead.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Gen. xx. 7. Þu bist dead for-raðe, and þa þe þe to lociað beoð liflease eac.
a. 1225. Leg. Kath., 1045. He … mid his worde awahte þe liflese liches to lif.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 8668. The Myrmaidons … Bere hym … to his big tent, There left hym as lyueles.
c. 1586. C’tess Pembroke, Ps. LXXIX. ii. The livelesse carcasses of those That liv’d thy servants, serve the crowes.
1650. W. Saunderson, Aul. Coquin., 19. He fear’d, that within few daies the Laird would be landlesse and livelesse.
1791. Cowper, Iliad, XVII. 286. He many a lifeless Trojan heap’d On slain Patroclus.
1841. Longf., Excelsior, ix. There in the twilight cold and grey, Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay.
1851. Ruskin, Stones Ven. (1874), I. App. 351. A blank level of lifeless grass.
Proverb. 1546. J. Heywood, Prov. (1867), 29. He is liueles, that is fautles.
1629. Gaule, Holy Madn., 309. Hee is liuelesse (they say) that is faultlesse.
b. hyperbolically. Said, e.g., of a person in a swoon; insensible, senseless.
1651. Charleton, Ephes. & Cimm. Matrons, II. (1668), 67. Consuming themselves in greedy looks, leave their bodies faint and liveless.
1671. H. M., trans. Erasm. Colloq., 517. If the Scorpion by chance creep by the herb Wolfsbane, it grows pale and liveless.
1795. Mrs. Parsons, Myst. Warning, I. iii. 51. His senses fled, and he fell extended on the floor. Happily a servant was passing … and beheld the lifeless body…. He was soon restored to his senses.
1826. Disraeli, Viv. Grey, III. vi. Mrs. Felix Lorraine sank lifeless into his arms.
2. Not endowed with or possessing life; inanimate.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Hom., II. 574. Fela templa arærdon and mid … lifleasum anlicnyssum afyldon.
1553. Grimalde, Cicero’s Offices, II. (1558), 79. What so in things liueless and what so in the use … of beastes is done profitablie to man’s life.
1600. Shaks., A. Y. L., I. ii. 263. That which here stands vp Is but a quintine, a mere liuelesse blocke.
1612. Heywood, Apol. Actors, I. 29. To … stande in his place like a livelesse image.
1686. J. Scott, Chr. Life (1747), III. 624. They conjur’d their Demons into their consecrated Images, and made the liveless Stocks to move and speak.
1851. Robertson, Serm., Ser. IV. x. (1876), 124. A collection of lifeless forces.
1887. Bowen, Virg. Æneid, I. 464. Then on the lifeless painting he feeds his heart to the fill.
3. Wanting vital quality; destitute of animation, vigor or activity. Also of food: containing no ‘life’ or nourishment.
a. 1225. Leg. Kath., 896. Þe wrenchfule feont … weorp ham ut sone of paraises selhðen into þis liflese lif.
a. 1420. Hoccleve, De Reg. Princ., 3894. Aftir moot he rowne with a pilwe His lyfles resouns þere to despende.
1561. Daus, trans. Bullinger on Apoc. (1573), 170 b. For Vespasian … did soone releeve the worlde that had long beene liuelesse and forlorne.
1586. Marlowe, 1st Pt. Tamburl., III. ii. Ceaseless and disconsolate conceits Which dye my looks so liveless as they are.
1633. Bp. Hall, Hard Texts, N. T., 194. Feeding on hearbs and rootes, and such other liveless nourishment.
1642. View Print. Bk. int. Observat., 20. They are livelesse conventions without all vertue and power.
1849. Ruskin, Sev. Lamps, V. xxi. (1880), 310. The effect of the whole, as compared with the same design cut by a machine or a lifeless hand.
1890. Daily News, 7 Dec., 2/5. This market is lagging again…. Flax lifeless.
4. Devoid of life or living beings.
1728–46. Thomson, Summer, 748. A wild expanse of lifeless sand and sky.
1762–71. H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint., IV. vii. 124. Statues furnished the lifeless spot with mimic representations of the excluded sons of men.
1879. Browning, Pheidippides, 53. Treeless, herbless, lifeless mountain.
Hence Lifelessly adv., Lifelessness.
1727. Bailey, vol. II., Lifelesness [sic].
1814. Byron, Corsair, III. xx. Each extended tress Long—fair—but spread in utter lifelessness.
1833. L. Ritchie, Wand. by Loire, 7. Antique-looking vessels, whose white sails hang in utter lifelessness from the mast.
1856. Olmsted, Slave States, 59. A few negro children … posed as lifelessly as if they were really figures ‘carved in ebony.’
1896. Academy, 5 Dec., 485/2. [His] style is lifelessly correct and drab with Latinisms.
