motionless

Etymology

It is formed from English motion + -less.^[2][3][4][5] Motion is from Old French mocion and Latin mōtiō (“a moving, motion”), from moveō (“to move”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Not moving, still: 1598, in Chapman's part of Marlowe and Chapman's Hero and Leander.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the 1590s,^[3] and Dictionary.com to 1590–1600.^[5]

Semantic evolution

From its first records the adjective meant both "not moving" and "incapable of motion".^[2][4] Johnson (1755) defined it as "wanting motion; being without motion", with quotations from Milton and Dryden's Aurengzebe: "I grow a statue, stiff and motionless".^[6] The noun motionlessness is recorded from the early 19th century and the adverb motionlessly from the late 19th.^[4]

Timeline

• 1598 – not moving, still; also incapable of motion.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Not moving at all; completely still: The heron stood motionless in the shallows.^[7][8][2]
2. Unable to move.^[2][4]

Word family

• motionlessly
• motionlessness

Related words

• motion
• move

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
7. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster