returnless

English

Etymology

From return +‎ -less.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɹəˈtɜɹnləs/

Adjective

returnless (not comparable)

1. from (or due to) which one will not, or cannot, return (of a journey, destination, situation, distance, etc.)
   • 1845, Mrs. F. Beavan, Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick‎^[1]:

     Seventeen years had rolled on their returnless flight since that night of withering sorrow.

   • 1857, S. H. Hammond, Wild Northern Scenes‎^[2]:

     They would do an immensity of labor on their returnless journey to the ocean.

   • 1872, William Still, The Underground Railroad‎^[3]:

     You must hear the judge's decision, remorselessly giving up the woman with her children born and unborn, into the hands of their claimants--by them to be carried to the slave prison, and thence to be sold to a returnless distance from the remaining but scattered fragments of her once happy family.

2. (of something that is gone) which will not return
   • 1827, Lydia Sigourney, Poems, Visit to the venerable Charles Thompson, pages 94–95:

     —but now false Memory loosed
     Her time-worn cable from the wilder'd mind,
     Blotting the chart whereon it loved to gaze
     Mid the dim ocean of returnless years.—

   • 1895, Mary Baker Eddy, Pulpit and Press‎^[4]:

     Pass on, returnless year!