lifeless
[lahyf-lis]
- not endowed with life; having no life; inanimate: lifeless matter.
- destitute of living things: a lifeless planet.
- deprived of life; dead: a battlefield strewn with lifeless bodies.
- without animation, liveliness, or spirit; dull; colorless; torpid: a lifeless performance of a play.
- insensible, as a person who has fainted.
Origin of lifeless
Synonyms
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com1. inorganic. 3. defunct. 4. inactive, inert, passive; sluggish; spiritless.
Synonym study
3. See dead.
Antonyms
1, 3. living. 4. lively.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for lifeless
Contemporary Examples
As a person in Iraq, you learn from an early age how to become “lifeless” – absolutely numb with no feelings whatsoever.
As if, after all the above, one would want anything that reeked of lifeless imitation.
How Horst Captured Dietrich, Rita Hayworth, and Vivien Leigh—and Changed Fashion PhotographyPatrick Strudwick
September 8, 2014
In that image too, a young boy stands only feet from a lifeless corpse bound to a cross and publicly displayed.
Islamic Extremists Now Crucifying People in Syria—and Tweeting Out the PicturesJacob Siegel
April 30, 2014
But Madiba himself strongly resisted such a lifeless portrait.
Villagers remember also the image of a mother and daughter, who died holding onto one another in a “lifeless embrace.”
Historical Examples
"Yes," he has explained it to me, he said in a lifeless voice.
Within the LawMarvin Dana
For fifteen years it had been standing there cold and lifeless.
The Three Cities Trilogy, CompleteEmile Zola
On entering the basilica Pierre had fancied that it was quite empty and lifeless.
The Three Cities Trilogy, CompleteEmile Zola
Overcome by the dangerous situation in which I saw my royal mistress, I myself was carried out of the room in a lifeless state.
The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, CompleteMadame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
On 319 the next day the lifeless body of John, was brought into the fort.
Chronicles of Border WarfareAlexander Scott Withers
lifeless
- without life; inanimate; dead
- not sustaining living organisms
- having no vitality or animation
- unconscious
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for lifeless
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper