Also 6 steiles, 6–7 stailesse. [f. STAY sb.3 + -LESS.]
1. Not to be stayed or stopped, ever-moving, unceasing, ceaseless.
1578. Blennerhasset, Mirr. Mag., Carassus, ix. They fled the fielde: They made me muse, to see how fast they striude, With staylesse steppes, eche one his life to shielde.
1590. C’tess Pembroke, Antonie, 486. And neuer can our weaknes turne awry The stailes course of powerfull destenie.
1611. J. Davies (Heref.), Sco. Folly, cxlvii. (Grosart), 25. That’s staylesse time, which he doth precious hold.
1825. Hogg, Q. Hynde, 24. Onward he drove with stayless shock.
a. 1851. Moir, Poet. Wks. (1852), II. 341. Though years in stayless current roll.
1867. G. Macdonald, Poems, 109. Stayless of foot, he turned not from the sea.
2. Without stay or permanence, ever-changing, unsettled.
c. 1572. Gascoigne, Fruites Warre, lxxiii. In meane while yet hopeth to aduaunce His staylesse state, by sworde, by speare, by shielde.
c. 1586. C’tess Pembroke, Ps. LXXVIII. iv. A waiward, stubborn, stailesse, faithlesse race.
1590. L. Andrewes, 96 Serm., Lent, ii. (1629), 277. We are but let see the wandring and staylesse estate we were in, till God vouchsafed to send us this gracious conduct.
1813. Hogg, Queen’s Wake, 290. She leaned to the lee, and she girdled the wave; Aloft on the stayless verge she hung.
1881. G. Macdonald, Mary Marston, II. 20. The bond between them was an eternal one, yet were they separated by a gulf of unrelation. Not a mountain range, but a stayless nothingness parted them.
