trackless

English edit

trackless

trackless trolleys in Cambridge, MA (USA)

Not having tracks or paths; untrodden.
- 1836, Joanna Baillie, The Bride, Act 1, Dramas 3, page 296
  Solitude in trackless deserts,
  
  Where locusts, ants, and lizards poorly thrive,
- 1987, Toni Morrison, Beloved:
  "You got two feet, Sethe, not four," he said, and right then a forest sprang up between them; trackless and quiet.
- 2015, Ann Leckie, Ancillary Mercy:
  It had probably at one point been meant for servants to use to go unobtrusively back and forth, but hadn't been used in years; the floor was dusty and trackless.
Not following a track.
- 1838, Eliza Cook, The Waters:
  What was it that I loved so well about my childhood's home? / It was the wide and wave-lashed shore, the black rocks crowned with foam! / It was the sea-gull's flapping wing, all trackless in its flight, / Its screaming note, that welcomed on the fierce and stormy night!
(of a train etc.) Not running on tracks.
trackless trolley
Without any track; having had the track removed.
- 2021 November 3, Dr Joseph Brennan, “Boxes with functions across the centuries”, in RAIL, number 943, page 59:
  The two structures remain in a remarkable state of preservation, despite finding themselves adrift and trackless in the County Down countryside, after the closure of the station and the line in the 1950s.

not having tracks or trails

not running on tracks