lifeless

[lahyf-lis]

adjective

1. not endowed with life; having no life; inanimate.

   lifeless matter.

   Synonyms: inorganic
   Antonyms: living

2. destitute of living things.

   a lifeless planet.

3. deprived of life; dead.

   a battlefield strewn with lifeless bodies.

   Synonyms: defunct
   Antonyms: living

4. without animation, liveliness, or spirit; dull; colorless; torpid.

   a lifeless performance of a play.

   Synonyms: spiritless, sluggish, passive, inert, inactive
   Antonyms: lively

5. insensible, as a person who has fainted.

lifeless

/ ˈlaɪflɪs /

adjective

1. without life; inanimate; dead

2. not sustaining living organisms

3. having no vitality or animation

4. unconscious

Other Word Forms

• lifelessly adverb
• lifelessness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of lifeless¹

before 1000; Middle English lifles, Old English līflēas. See life, -less

Synonym Study

See dead.

Example Sentences

As the entire set catches fire, she's wheeled out on a hospital gurney, surrounded by dancers in red plague doctors costumes, who operate on her lifeless body.

From BBC

Usually, with a lifeless body hanging limp from a broken neck, the spectacle of gruesome victimhood in a lynching photograph obscures the bigger picture.

From Los Angeles Times

“It feels really lifeless and exclusionary, and the love that those centers had for their students — that love hasn’t found its place back to campus yet,” she said in an interview.

From Salon

A gruesome video shared online shows a car's shattered window with the bloodied, lifeless body of the lawyer slouched over the steering wheel.

From BBC

Local police said a 31-year-old was later found lifeless on the shoreline.

From BBC

Related Words

• drab 
• lackluster 
• lethargic 
• listless 
• passive 
• sluggish 
• static 
• stiff