lifeless

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English lifles,^[2][3] inherited from Old English līflēas,^[2][4][3][5] formed from Old English līf (“life”) + -lēas (“-less”),^[2] the ancestors of life and -less.^[4][6] The OED takes it as cognate with, or formed in the same way as, Old Frisian līflās, Middle Dutch lijfloos, Old Saxon līflōs, Old High German lībelōs, Middle High German līplōs, Old Norse líflauss and Swedish livlös, all from the Germanic bases of the two elements.^[7][4] Compare Dutch levenloos and German leblos, built on a different but related noun.^[7][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

That has ceased to live, dead: in Ælfric's Old English Hexateuch, at Genesis 20:7, "Ðú bist deád and ða ðe ðé tó lóciaþ beóþ lífleáse".^[7][5] Dictionary.com dates the word to before 1000,^[3] and Merriam-Webster to before the 12th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old English already used the word for what never had life as well as for what had lost it: Ælfric writes of temples filled with images "without sense and without life", and of orchard trees as lífleáse.^[5][7] The OED also finds an extended use in Ælfric, lacking a vital spark or holding no physical or spiritual nourishment, now obsolete, which later weakened to lacking vigour or animation;^[7] Etymonline dates the figurative sense from the early 13th century,^[4] and the Shorter Oxford from Middle English.^[6] John Heywood recorded the proverb he is lifeless that is faultless in 1546.^[7] The sense "devoid of living beings" is first recorded in 1615 in the OED,^[7] though Etymonline gives 1728 and the Shorter Oxford the mid 18th century.^[4][6] From 1668 the word could be used, by exaggeration, of a person who had fainted or was unconscious.^[7][6] Johnson (1755) puts "dead; deprived of life" first and "unanimated; void of life" second,^[8] and Webster (1828) adds "destitute of power, force, vigor or spirit" and, of liquor, "vapid".^[9]

Timeline

• Old English – dead; inanimate; also, in extended use, lacking a vital spark.^[7][5]
• 1546 – the proverb he is lifeless that is faultless.^[7]
• 1615 – devoid of living beings.^[7]
• 1668 – of a person, unconscious, as from a faint.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. No longer living; dead.^[10][2][7]
2. Never having had life; inanimate: a lifeless lump of rock.^[10][2][7]
3. Having no living things, or unable to support them: a lifeless desert.^[10][11][7]
4. Lacking vitality or animation; dull: The actor gave a lifeless reading of the speech.^[10][2][11]
5. Unconscious, or appearing dead.^[10][2][7]

Word family

• lifelessly
• lifelessness

Related words

• life
• -less

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
6. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ Webster, Noah (1828), An American Dictionary of the English Language, New York: S. Converse
10. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin