a. [f. SMOKE sb. + -LESS.]
1. Emitting or producing no smoke.
1582. T. Watson, Poems (Arb.), 134. A Shipwracke of mans life; a Smoaklesse fire.
1732. Pope, Ep. Bathurst, 191. Tenants with sighs the smoakless tow’rs survey.
1795–1814. Wordsw., Excurs., VII. 54. The smokeless chimney-top.
1856. Kane, Arctic Expl., I. xxx. 405. The lamps were cheerful and smokeless.
1868. Daily News, 2 Sept., 5/5. It was found that the coals of the Aberdare collieries were comparatively smokeless.
1890. Sir F. A. Abel, in Nature, 4 Sept., 422/2. Noiselessness was one of the important attributes of a smokeless powder.
2. Free from, clear of, smoke.
1631. Brathwait, Whimzies, 76. To leave his smoaklesse house in the Countrey … to riot in the Citie.
1802. Wordsw., Westminster Bridge, 8. All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., III. I. ii. The Sun shines; serenely westering, in smokeless mackerel-sky.
Hence Smokelessly adv.; Smokelessness.
1877. Echo, 18 July, 1/1. Its Smokelessness, Cleanliness, and Great Economy over all other descriptions [of coal].
1890. Engineer, LXIX. 2 May, 357/3 (Cent.). The appliances for, or methods of, consuming coal smokelessly are already at work.
