consciencelessadj.n.

?c1425 (c1412) T. Hoccleve De Regimine Principum (Royal 17 D.vi) (1860) 23 Whan I was yonge, I was fulle recheles..And amonge other conscienceles.

1583 G. Babington Very Fruitfull Expos. Commaundem. vi. 283 As did the iudges of Susanna, and as many consciencelesse men in these daies doe.

a1600 R. Hooker Of Lawes Eccl. Politie vii. xxiv, in Wks. (1662) 68 Conscienceless and wicked Patrons.

a1656 Bp. J. Hall Shaking of Olive-tree (1660) 418 If they be honest and conscionable..they would not yield to determine ought unjustly: And if dishonest and conscienceless, it is not the perpetuall inheritance of our places that can make our determinations just.

1747 T. Mall's Hist. Martyrs I. 24 So they play the Dissemblers with the Church of God.., offending the Godly, whom either they provoke to fall with them, or make more careless and conscienceless, if they have fallen.

1824 Economist 17 July 135/2 Think of this, ye conscienceless compounders of villainous drugs.

1881 A. M. Fairbairn Stud. Life Christ xiii. 222 A seared and conscienceless ruffian.

1932 T. E. Lawrence tr. Homer Odyssey xiv It is too much the yarn any conscienceless waif might spin to earn him board and lodging.

2008 J. S. Taylor Public Life Fetal Sonogram iv. 98 ‘Psychopathy’ as a diagnostic label..lives on in prisons, where the term gets applied to individuals who are thought to be conscienceless and evil predators.

?1587 R. Southwell Epist. Comfort i. f. 7^v They sayled vppon the surges of worldly vanityes, & followed the tyde of a consciencelesse course.

1588 W. Allen Admon. to Nobility & People 24 By which Machivelian, godlesse, and consciencelesse course.

1623 R. Bernard Looke beyond Luther Ep. Ded. 3 A iust punishment..for their consciencelesse liuing.

1660 T. White Mr. Blacklow's Reply Dr. Layburn's Pamphlet 27 Neither will I touch his accusing me of prophane Novelties, upon his own words, or of some interessed Regulars, and such as follow their Authority..but onely his consciencelesse calumnies.

1817 National Advocate (N.Y.) 6 Mar. Was this a time for passion, lawless, conscienceless, licentious passion?

1883 American 7 187 The stigma of conscienceless policy.

1926 R. H. Tawney Relig. & Rise Capitalism ii. 89 When he [sc. Luther] looks at German social life, he finds it ridden by a conscienceless money-power, which incidentally ministers..to the avarice and corruption of Rome.

2008 H. M. Schulweis Conscience i. 21 In Judaism, belief in God and religious observance do not override conscienceless behavior.

1605 Bp. J. Hall Medit. & Vowes (new ed.) II. §77 Riches come seldome easily, to a good man; seldome hardly to the consciencelesse.

1850 Alta Calif. (San Francisco) 1 Oct. What has been brought before the world is so buried up in misrepresentations, so overdrawn by the conscienceless, or under wrought by the ignorant.

1899 Good Housek. Feb. 67/2 Show her that the conscienceless will load her with benefits only to use her for a decoy.

1918 W. G. Harding in Proc. 49th Ann. Meeting Fire Underwriters' Assoc. Northwest 114 The radical and the conscienceless have taken advantage of the stress of the occasion to force upon the republic the things we wouldn't think of in the reflections of a tranquil hour.

2004 Guardian (Nexis) 21 May 4 The conscienceless, those dreadful individuals who can be found, say at the rate of one in a couple of thousand, in any society.

a1603 T. Cartwright Confut. Rhemists New Test. (1618) 694 So securely and consciencelesly to passe by the least of Gods commandements.

1899 Atlanta (Georgia) Constit. 7 Nov. 6/2 The difference..is the amount out of which the poor farmers of the south have been deliberately and consciencelessly robbed.

1954 D. N. Ferguson Masterwks. Orchestral Repertoire 71 It is simply alive: heedlessly, consciencelessly alive. It is a kind of Pagan symphony.

2007 Eureka (Calif.) Times Standard (Nexis) 30 May Indigents..are accompanied by equally impoverished but always sexually intact dogs, whose inevitable litters are handed out to other incompetents, or consciencelessly abandoned.

1857 Evangelical Christendom 1 Nov. 405/2 We do not contend for the freedom of consciencelessness, but the freedom of conscience.

1882 Spectator 22 Apr. 522 [It] shows the..consciencelessness of the Secret Committee.

a1945 E. R. Eddison Mezentian Gate (1972) p. xiii They too..have their places (higher or lower in proportion to their integrity and to the mere consciencelessness and purity of their mischief) in the hierarchy of true values.

2003 J. Sloan Oscar Wilde v. 145 Yet in objecting to criticism of the novel for vamping the moral while promoting immorality, Wilde pointed out that Dorian's weakness and limitations were not ones of consciencelessness and excess.