1. lit. a. That is naturally without teeth; not developing teeth. b. Having the teeth still undeveloped; that has not yet cut its teeth. c. Having lost the teeth, as from age.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., VI. ix. (Bodl. MS.). Þe norise … chewith mete in hire owne mowþe and makeþ it redie to þe toþeles child. Ibid., XVIII. xviii. (ibid.). Bestes þat beþ toþeles in þe ouer iowe.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 498/1. Tootheles, for age, edentalus. Ibid. Tootheles, for ȝungthe.
1581. Derricke, Image of Irel. (1883), 19. Let the toothlesse crabbed queane boyle in her owne despight.
1673. Hickeringill, Greg. F. Greyb., 185. The practise men use to curst currs, and mastives that are man-keen; they break their Teeth, their sharp Grinders; a toothless Dog bites not much more than a dead dog.
1784. Cowper, Task, IV. 8. Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald.
1810. Southey, Kehama, XIII. xii. The Tygress leaves her toothless cubs.
1880. Günther, Fishes, 170. The toothless buccal cavity is surrounded by a semicircular upper lip.
2. transf. Destitute of tooth-like formations or projections; not jagged or serrated.
1812. New Bot. Gard., I. 8. Follicles oblong, acuminate, toothless.
1822. J. Parkinson, Outl. Oryctol., 153. The aperture [of the shell] long, narrow, toothless.
1883. Gd. Words, Aug., 505/2. There are grooves of the portcullis still, but it is toothless now.
3. fig. Destitute of keenness or ‘edge’; not biting or corrosive; also fig.
1592. Nashe, Four Lett. Confut., Wks. (Grosart), II. 203. Poore secular Satirist … that with the toothlesse gums of his Poetry so betuggeth a dead man.
1597. Bp. Hall (title), Virgidemiarum, Sixe Bookes. First three Bookes, Of Tooth-lesse Satyrs.
1650. Baxter, Saints’ R., III. ii. § 14. 295. If a drunken … Preacher did … read the Common Prayer, or some toothless Homily, instead of a searching … Sermon.
a. 1764. Lloyd, Epist. to C. Churchill, Poet. Wks. 1774, I. 86. No toothless spleen, no venom’d critic’s aim.
1882. Mrs. Oliphant, Lit. Hist. Eng., I. 312. The ‘Lyrical ballads,’ at which every toothless critic sneered.
† b. loosely. Tasteless; not toothsome. Obs.
1679. Jane, Serm. at St. Margarets, 11 April, 17. This … renders all his most exquisite pleasures toothless and insipid.
Hence Toothlessly adv.; Toothlessness.
1631. Celestina, iv. 49. That toothlessnesse of the gummes.
1834. Bristol Mercury & Daily Post, 20 Dec., 4/3. One part of them has shown itself, in every measure, to be all Tory and all tooth; and the other part, though toothless, is yet toothlessly Tory—they have not the bite of the Tory, but they have the claws.
1855. H. Spencer, Princ. Psychol. (1872), II. VI. vi. 62. In the infant, toothlessness coexists with the power of developing thirty-two teeth at maturity.
1891. Harper’s Mag., Sept., 537/1. Toothlessly smiling.
