rulelessadj.n.

c1460 J. Lydgate Praise of Peace l. 110 in Minor Poems (1934) ii. 789 (MED) Queen of Hevene lay in a symple hous, A poore stable mong beestys rewleless [rhyme pees].

1556 J. Heywood Spider & Flie xcii. 115 Let rewld lords rewle rewlesse losels, when they crake.

1587 J. Higgins Mirour for Magistrates (new ed.) Morindus x Three yeares I ruled had this Ile Without all rule, as was my rulesse life.

1642 C. Herle Fuller Answer to Dr. Ferne 10 How injurious doth he..labour to make the King to his posterity, as well as rulelesse in himselfe?

1689 E. Howard Caroloiades 273 Some Man, By drink made ruleless.

1739 Mr. Bridges Hymn xlv. 12 T'oppose Thy Wisdom our weak Minds What ruleless Passions sway!

1786 T. Holcroft Amourous Tale iii. vii. 220 She, with rule-less passions, seized upon her sister's place and chamber.

1858 T. Carlyle Hist. Friedrich II of Prussia I. iii. i. 195 He came as the representative of law and rule; and there had been many helping themselves by a ruleless life, of late.

1963 E. Van den Haag & R. Ross Passion & Social Constraint (2006) ii. viii. 118 We imagine those who are not members of our group to be ruleless, and free as we are not.

1986 M. J. Barrett et al. in T. S. Trepper & M. J. Barrett Treating Incest ii. 76 Chaotic families appear to be ‘ruleless’ and ‘rulerless’.

1996 W. Hutton State we're In (rev. ed.) ii. 39 In a ruleless state there can be no rules that qualify foreign ownership of British newspapers.

1836 R. S. Bayley Nature considered as Revelation i. vi. 57 Does Africa jabber in a thousand ruleless languages?

1867 Macmillan's Mag. Apr. 521/2 This [i.e. English] seemed an altogether ruleless and unruly language.

1957 Philos. Q. 7 70 A ruleless language is a contradiction in terms.

2003 tr. S. Li et al. Math. Exper. xiv. 192 If the change of the key is so ruleless that even our own receiver cannot decrypt it, then we cannot achieve the aim of sending information.

1837 T. Carlyle French Revol. II. i. i. 6 Man indeed,..lives in this world to make rule out of the ruleless.

1908 A. Harvey tr. F. Nietzsche Human, All Too Human 144 Man is the rule, nature the ruleless.

1995 Independent on Sunday 23 July 2 (heading) Our rulers and the ruleless.

1853 Ladies' Compan. Feb. 90/2 The unexpectedness and rulelessness in the character of the oratoric accent has no points by which the teacher can denote it.

1969 P. Anderson in A. Cockburn & R. Blackburn Student Power 222 The concept of anomie—the unceasing reproduction of subjective rulelessness by a society that is defined by its ensemble of objective rules.

2000 M. S. Fleisher Dead End Kids xiv. 214 Gang life is predicated on immediate economic gain from drug and other crime profits and social gain from the agency of rulelessness.