a. [f. STOP sb.2 + -LESS.] Without a stop or stops. a. Unceasing. b. Of a pipe: Having no stops. c. Without punctuation.
1660. Davenant, Poem K. Chas. II.’s Return, 14. Making a civill and staid Senate rude, And stoplesse as a running multitude.
1899. Academy, 1 Nov., 543/2. A slouching figure playing imaginary tunes on a stopless pipe.
1903. W. Jerrold, in Great Thoughts, 10 Jan., 248/1. The voice gives out before the end of the first stopless stanza of over 60 lines.
Hence Stoplessness.
1859. Sat. Rev., 19 Feb., 220/1. Sometimes she works herself up into a state of utter stoplessness—at others, she gives half a page in which the pause of a comma is all the time allowed for refreshment anywhere.
