bootless
English
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈbuːtləs/
Audio (US): (file)
Etymology 1
Etymology tree
From Middle English boteles, botelees; by surface analysis, boot + -less.
Adjective
bootless (not comparable)
- Without boots.
Translations
without boots
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Etymology 2
Etymology tree
From Middle English boteles, botles, from Old English bōtlēas, from Proto-West Germanic *bōtalaus, from Proto-Germanic *bōtalausaz; by surface analysis, boot (“profit; use; behoof”) + -less. Doublet of botleas.
Alternative forms
Adjective
bootless (comparative more bootless, superlative most bootless)
- Profitless; pointless; unavailing.
- c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:
- I'll follow him no more with bootless prayers.
- 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
- 1785, Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue,, page 4:
- APRIL FOOL, Any one imposed on, or sent on a bootless errand on the first of April, on which day it is the custom among the lower people, children, and servants, by dropping empty papers carefully doubled up, sending persons on absurd messages, and such like contrivances, to impose on every one they can, and then to salute them with the title of April-fool.
- 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.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations
Categories:
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- English terms derived from Frankish
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *lewh₁-
- English terms derived from Proto-West Germanic
- English terms suffixed with -less
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English uncomparable adjectives
- English terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *bʰed-
- English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English doublets
- English terms with quotations