speechless

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English specheles,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English spǣclēas,^[2][3][4][5] formed from spǣc (“speech”) and -lēas (“-less”),^[3][5] the sources of speech and -less.^[3][6] The Middle English Dictionary treats it as a variant of *sprǣclēas,^[2] and Bosworth–Toller enters it under sprǣclēas.^[7] Wiktionary reconstructs Proto-Germanic *sprēkalausaz.^[1] The OED compares Dutch sprakeloos, Middle Low German sprâkelôs, Old High German sprâhhalôs and German sprachlos.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Without the power of speech: an Old English glossary has spǽcleáse ł dume for the Latin elinguia,^[7][5] and Etymonline glosses the Old English word as "permanently mute".^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word first described a lasting lack of speech,^[4][5] and in Middle English it also came to cover a passing loss.^[5][2] About 1290 it was used of someone unable to speak through illness, injury or exhaustion,^[5] and about 1374, in Chaucer's Troilus, of someone struck dumb by astonishment or fear;^[5][8] Etymonline dates this emotional sense to the late 14th century.^[4] Silence by choice followed in Gower in 1390.^[5] From the 1590s the word moved from the speaker to the state or the feeling: Shakespeare applied it to an emotion that takes away speech in Lucrece (1594),^[5] and it was used of things not put into words from 1600 to 1616.^[5] In 1813 Shelley used it for what cannot be expressed in speech.^[5] Johnson (1755) gave "deprived of the power of speaking; made mute or dumb".^[9] In 1881 Besant and Rice wrote of evenings from which Sir Miles was so often carried home speechless, the first record of the word for dead drunk,^[5][10] which Green's Dictionary of Slang calls a euphemism.^[10]

Timeline

• Old English – lacking the faculty of speech.^[5][7]
• c. 1290 – unable to speak through illness, injury or exhaustion.^[5]
• c. 1374 – struck dumb for the moment by astonishment or fear, in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde.^[5][8]
• 1390 – refraining from speech, silent, in Gower's Confessio Amantis.^[5][11]
• 1594 – of an emotion, taking away the power of speech, in Shakespeare's Lucrece.^[5][11]
• 1600 – not uttered in speech, in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice (obsolete by 1616).^[5][11]
• 1726 – marked by an absence of speech.^[5][11]
• 1813 – in poetry, incapable of being expressed in speech.^[5][11]
• 1881 – dead drunk.^[5][10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. For the moment unable to speak, through shock or strong emotion: The news left the whole family speechless.^{[12][13][14][3]}
2. Unable to speak because of illness or injury.^[5][3][6]
3. Lacking the faculty of speech; mute.^[14][3][5]
4. Refraining from speech; silent or reticent.^[14][3][5]
5. Not expressed in words, or impossible to express: speechless wonder.^[14][12][5]
6. Of an emotion, so strong as to take away the power of speech.^[3][5]
7. (colloquial) Dead drunk.^[5][6][10]

Word family

• speechlessly
• speechlessness

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
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. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
8. ^ a b Skeat, W. W., ed. (1894), The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, vol. VI: Glossarial Index, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
11. ^ a b c d e Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt