a. [f. as prec. + -LESS.]
1. Having no sweetness of tone; untuneful, unmusical, unmelodious, harsh-sounding.
1594. Spenser, Amoretti, xliv. Then Orpheus with his harp theyr strife did bar … But, when in hand my tunelesse harp I take, Then doe I more augment my foes despight.
1656. Cowley, Misc., Swallow, 3. Foolish Prater, what dost thou … With thy tuneless Serenade?
1759. [H. Dalrymple], Woodstock: an Elegy (1761), 16. His tuneless numbers hardly now survive.
1870. Morris, Earthly Par., II. III. 47. The music of her voice Made the birds’ song seem tuneless noise.
2. Giving no ‘tune’ or sound; not making music; songless; silent.
1728. W. Starrat, Epist., 48, in Ramsay’s Poems (1877), II. 275. What tuneless heart-strings wadna twang, When love and beauty animate the sang?
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., IV. ii. (1824), II. 337. The Field-fare and the Red-wing … With us … are insipid tuneless birds, flying in flocks.
1821. Byron, Juan, III. Isles of Greece, v. The heroic lay is tuneless now.
1868. Geo. Eliot, Sp. Gipsy, 227. As tuneless as a bag of wool.
3. Without musical knowledge or skill. rare.
1821. Byron, Juan, IV. lxxxvii. An ignorant, noteless timeless, tuneless fellow.
Hence Tunelessly adv., Tunelessness.
1881. M. Arnold, in Macm. Mag., March, 370. The slovenliness and tunelessness of much of Byron’s production.
1905. ‘Q’ (Quiller-Couch), Shining Ferry, II. xii. Mr. Sam spoke tunelessly.
