a. [f. as prec. + -LESS.]
1. Destitute of ‘troth’ or loyalty; faithless, perfidious, disloyal. arch.
α. c. 1200. Ormin, 188. He shall turrnenn þurrh hiss spell Þe trowwþelæse leode.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, IV. vii. 8. Thow trouthles wycht.
β. 1567. Drant, Horace, Art Poetry, A iv. Let Ino still be sad, Ixie trothlesse, Io wandring.
1594. Lodge, Wounds Civil War, III. i. D iij b. The trustfull man that builds on trothles vowes.
1647. Trapp, Comm. Matt. viii. 32. [Drunkenness] making the understanding ignorant, the strong staggering, the trusty trothless.
1887. Swinburne, Locrine, I. i. 68. No coward indeed, but faithless, trothless.
† 2. Destitute of truth; false, mendacious; incredible, untrustworthy. Obs.
α. 1390. Gower, Conf., III. 151. Bot what thing that is troutheles, It mai noght wel be schameles.
β. 1592. Greene, Groat’s W. Wit (1874), 13. Trothlesse toungs of men.
1601. Deacon & Walker, Answ. Darel, 60. To trauerse the trueth of their trothlesse tales. Ibid., 75. Will you leaue the law, and the testimonies, and trot after a blind and a trothlesse lad for the reuelation of these hidden truthes?
