a. [f. SMILE sb.]
1. Of persons, the features, expression, etc.: Exhibiting no smile; never smiling; grave, severe.
1719. Lady Wardlaw, Hardyknute, xxxiv. With smyless luke, and visage wan, The wounded Knight replied.
1837. Wordsw., Night thought, 11. Ingrates who wear a smileless face The whole year through.
1838. Lytton, Alice, XI. i. Pale, wan,… smileless, she was the ghost of her former self.
1882. C. D. Warner, Washington Irving, x. 295. But while he has given us a dignified portrait of Washington, it is as far as possible removed from that of the smileless prig which has begun to weary even the popular fancy.
1892. G. Hake, Mem. 80 Yrs., xxxv. 115. Horace Smith’s face was of that free, smileless expression.
b. Of words, etc.: Uttered without a smile.
1810. Mrs. S. Green, Reformist, I. 208. She either replied not at all, or only answered her by a smileless monosyllable.
1877. Daily News, 30 Nov., 6/1. It is a fearfully impressive thing to listen to his smileless, unaltering harangues.
2. Devoid of brightness or cheerfulness; dark, dull, cheerless.
1858. Lytton, What will He do? VI. ix. And so the old man, whose life had been so smileless, died smiling.
1858. O. W. Holmes, Aut. Breakf.-t., iv. That smileless eternity to which they look forward.
a. 1873. Lytton, Pausanias, 60. The very moonlight upon these waters, cold and smileless.
Hence Smilelessly adv.; Smilelessness.
1844. J. T. Hewlett, Parsons & W., xxvi. Not only smileless herself, but the cause of smilelessness in others.
1869. Aldrich, Story Bad Boy, 68. At seven o’clock my grandfather comes smilelessly down stairs.
