bootless
English edit
Etymology 1 edit
From Middle English bootles, botelees; equivalent to boot + -less.
Adjective edit
bootless (not comparable)
- Without boots.
Etymology 2 edit
From Middle English boteles, botles, from Old English bōtlēas; equivalent to boot (“profit; use; behoof”) + -less. Doublet of botleas.
Alternative forms edit
Adjective edit
bootless (comparative more bootless, superlative most bootless)
- Profitless; pointless; unavailing.
- 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 29”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:
- When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, / I all alone beweep my outcast state / And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
- 1844, Sir John William Kaye, Peregrine Pultuney: or, Life in India, page 251:
- The lieutenant tried the handle again, but still his efforts were quite bootless. He pushed and kicked, but the door was a strong one.