soundless - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Proto-Indo-European *lewHs-der.

Proto-West Germanic *-laus

Middle English -les

English soundless

From sound + -less.

soundless (comparative more soundless, superlative most soundless)

  1. Without sound.
    Synonyms: noiseless, silent
    a soundless tableau
    • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:
      Cassius. […] for your words, they rob the Hybla bees,
      And leave them honeyless.
      Antony. Not stingless too.
      Brutus. O yes, and soundless too;
      For you have stol’n their buzzing, Antony,
      And very wisely threat before you sting.
    • 1663, Robert Boyle, Some Considerations Touching the Usefulness of Experimental Naturall Philosophy‎[1], Oxford: Richard Davis, Essay 2, page 49:
      The Psalmist observes, That the Heavens declare the glory of God: And indeed, they celebrate his Praises, though with a soundless Voice, yet with so loud a one […] to our intellectual Ears, that he scruples not to affirm, that There is no Speech nor Language where their voice is not heard […]
    • 1797, Ann Radcliffe, chapter 7, in The Italian‎[2], volume 2, London: T. Cadell Junior & W. Davies, page 225:
      The whole building, with its dark windows and soundless avenues, had an air strikingly forlorn and solitary.
    • 1839 September, Edgar Allan Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, volume 5, page 145:
      During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hang oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country […]
    • 1984 August 18, Pam Mitchell, “We Must Not Silence Our Lives”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 6, page 8:
      All day a woman across the room from me has been rolling up her pages scroll-like and smoothing them out as soundless tears cascade down her face.
  2. Not capable of being sounded or fathomed.
    Synonyms: bottomless, depthless, fathomless, unfathomable, unsoundable
    the soundless deep
    • 1614, Christopher Brooke, The Ghost of Richard the Third, London: L. Lisle, “The Legend of Richard the Third,”[5]
      Nor Wits, nor Chronicles could ere containe,
      The Hell-deepe Reaches, of my soundlesse Braine.
    • 1881, Walt Whitman, “Out from Behind This Mask (To Confront a Portrait)”, in Leaves of Grass‎[6], London: David Bogue, page 296:
      This heart’s geography’s map, this limitless small continent, this soundless sea;

without sound