[f. SOUND sb.3]
1. Having, making, emitting, etc., no sound; devoid of sound; quiet, silent.
Freq. in the 19th cent.
1601. Shaks., Jul. C., V. i. 36. Your words … rob the Hibla Bees, And leaue them Hony-lesse…. O yes, and soundlesse too: For you haue stolne their buzzing, Antony.
1663. Boyle, Usef. Exp. Nat. Philos., I. ii. 49. They celebrate his praises, though with a soundless voice.
1797. Mrs. Radcliffe, Italian, vi. She glided forward with soundless step.
1826. Disraeli, V. Grey, V. xv. Once more the attentive ear listening for the soundless breath.
1855. Lynch, Rivulet, XCIII. ii. Soundless as chariots on the snow.
1883. Standard, 7 Sept., 5/6. The soundless progress of the apparently animated car.
b. In quasi-adv. use: Soundlessly.
1844. Mrs. Browning, Drama of Exile, 522. My lips prayed, soundless, to myself.
1879. G. Macdonald, Sir Gibbie, III. i. 14. The moment the sound of them had ceased, he darted soundless after him.
2. In which no sound is heard; still.
1816. Wordsw., Sonn. Liberty, II. xxxiv. 38. A soundless waste, a trackless vacancy!
1818. Milman, Samor, 63. Vast Germany … Deserts to silence and the beasts of game Her long and soundless forests.
1881. H. James, in Macm. Mag., XLIV. 191/1. She lingered in the soundless drawing-room long after the fire had gone out.
3. Of the ear: Hearing no sound. rare–1.
1890. Talmage, From Manger to Throne, 297. The world has never seen but one surgeon who could … reconstruct the drum of a soundless ear.
Hence Soundlessly adv., Soundlessness.
1820. Croly, Sebastian, 50. Were moving, scatter’d, swift, and *soundlessly.
1837. Blackw. Mag., XLI. 608/2. Insinuating its way into the bottom of her pocket, and soundlessly relieving it of the notes and shillings.
1865. Mrs. Whitney, Gayworthys, xxvi. Skylie clapped her hands again, soundlessly.
1889. L. Hearn, in Harper’s Mag., Dec., 117/2. Soundlessly you will tread those shadowy pavements many times.
1831. [J. Poole], in New Monthly Mag., 403. A morning was to dawn for me, in whose ineffable *soundlessness I might lose all memory of the agonies of the time past.
1834. Fraser’s Mag., X. 663/2. Then comes a sort of moonlight dimness, and a dulled soundlessness.
1881. H. James, Portr. Lady, xxxix. The soundlessness of her step.
1897. Hinde, Congo Arabs, 77. The same monotony of colour and of soundlessness was above us as in the depths below.
