| 释义 |
dateless, a.|ˈdeɪtlɪs|
[-less.]
1. a. Without a date, bearing no date, undated.
1644Prynne & Walker Fiennes's Trial 5 A Note..without name or date, with a datelesse, namelesse Paper inclosed. 1798W. Taylor in Monthly Rev. XXVII. 514 A dateless account..inserted after the edict for its abolition. 1891Spectator 4 Apr., Here is a dateless letter.
b. Free from engagements or appointments. U. S.
1923N. Y. Tribune 25 Apr., The young men at Northwestern University have agreed to join the young women of that institution in observing three dateless nights each week. 1944Chicago Tribune 10 Dec. Grafic Mag. 4 Sometimes that mood indigo comes up briefly on a dateless Friday night.
2. Having no limit or fixed term; endless.
1593Shakes. Rich. II, i. iii. 151 The datelesse limit of thy deere exile. 1624Darcie Birth of Heresies 108 Thy datelesse fame. 1811Shelley St. Irvyne Prose Wks. 1888 I. 219 A dateless and hopeless eternity of horror. 1870Lowell Study Wind. (1886) 164 Immortal as that dateless substance of the soul.
3. Of indefinite duration in the past; so ancient that its date or age cannot be determined; immemorial.
1794Coleridge Poems, Relig. Musings, In the primeval age a dateless while The vacant shepherd wandered with his flock. 1814Wordsw. Excursion vi. Wks. (1888) 493/2 From dateless usage which our peasants hold Of giving welcome to the first of May. 1849Ruskin Sev. Lamps iii. §4. 66 The dateless hills, which it needed earthquakes to lift, and deluges to mould.
4. dial. Out of one's senses, crazed; insensible. Also, foolish, ‘clueless’.
a1686A. Martindale Life (1845) iv. 79 Which he, being almost datelesse for age,..readily granted. 1848Mrs. Gaskell Mary Barton II. vi. 98 Poor soul, she's gone dateless, I think, with care, and watching, and over-much trouble. 1854N. & Q. 1st Ser. X. 211/1 ‘After he hit me o' th' heead I was dateless;’ that is, I took no note of time. 1863Mrs. Gaskell Sylvia's L. II. 263 Mother is gone dateless wi' sorrow. 1867E. Waugh Dead Man's Dinner 19 (Lanc. Gloss.) They..laid her upo' th' couch cheer, as dateless as a stone. 1961J. I. M. Stewart Man who won Pools v. 58 She'll be pretty dateless, won't she, as the wife of a man with hundreds of thousands of pounds? Ibid. xi. 121 He'd been pretty well flourishing a quarter of a million pounds at her like she was a dateless shopgirl.
5. absol. Cf. timeless a. 2 b.
1894Daily News 17 Sept. 4/6 Its [sc. the British Museum's] way of bringing itself..to date is to approach nearer and nearer to the dateless.
Hence ˈdatelessly adv.; ˈdatelessness, the quality of being dateless; the absence of a fixed limit of time.
1660T. M. Hist. Independ. iv. 91 The Officers of his [Monk's] Army..agreed..that the Parliament intended..to perpetuate the Nations slavery by their datelesness. 1956K. Clark Nude iv. 117 The standing woman is not so datelessly naturalistic. Her..complex pose seems to have been derived from an antique relief. |
