countless

Etymology

It is formed from English count + -less.^[2][3][4][5] The OED and the Shorter Oxford take the base to be the noun,^[2][6] Etymonline the verb.^[3] Klein says it was first used by Shakespeare.^[7] The noun is from Old French conte, from Late Latin computus (“calculation”),^[8] from Latin computō (“to calculate, reckon”).^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

That cannot be counted: 1593, in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis.^[2][9] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the word to 1588,^[5] Etymonline to the 1580s,^[3] and Dictionary.com to 1580–90.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word has been used mainly of numbers, and less often of quantity or value, as in Shakespeare's "this countless debt".^[2][6] Johnson (1755) defined it as "innumerable; without number; not to be reckoned", quoting Titus Andronicus.^[10]

Timeline

• 1593 – that cannot be counted, of number and sometimes of quantity or value.^[2][9] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the word to 1588.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Too many to be counted; innumerable or myriad: She had answered the same question countless times.^{[5][11][12][13]}
2. Too great in amount or value to be reckoned.^[2][6]

Word family

• countlessly

Related words

• count
• -less
• account

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ Webster's New World College Dictionary (2014), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers