motionless
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of motionless
Explanation
If you're motionless, you're completely still, not moving a muscle. Your barber might instruct you to remain motionless while he trims the hair around your ears. Anything that's motionless doesn't move — a statue is motionless, and your bike is motionless lying in the driveway until you climb on it and start pedaling. Photographs are motionless, while video records movement. Your new puppy might be a constantly wiggling, jumping ball of motion until she becomes exhausted and falls sound asleep, motionless. Motion, or movement, comes from a Latin root, motionem, "a movement" or "an emotion."
Vocabulary lists containing motionless
Talk Like Shakespeare Day, List 4
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"The Woman in the Snow" and "Rosa Parks"
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English Language Development Texts, Unit 2
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The work connects two seemingly opposite descriptions of a single impurity moving through or remaining nearly motionless within a large collection of fermions, a system known as a Fermi sea.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 9, 2026
Video footage seen in court showed her lying motionless on the ground with "her face buried in her hands", while another boy was heard shouting words of encouragement.
From BBC ● Jul. 1, 2026
The ending is slapdash and rushed, somehow missing an emotional target sitting motionless one foot away.
From Salon ● Jun. 27, 2026
Its high-tech ceramics are used to hold silicon wafers motionless while they are etched with circuitry.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
The sun couldn’t penetrate the honeysuckle leaves, so the motionless air on the porch was as dark as twilight.
From "Homecoming" by Cynthia Voigt
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
