1828–32 N. Webster Amer. Dict. Eng. Lang. (citing Bigsby).

1853 Jrnl. Royal Agric. Soc. 14 i. 19 The steep, rugged, and nearly soilless sides and crags of the limestone.

1865 Spratt Crete I. 20 A bared and almost soilless part of the mountain-face.

1971 Daily Tel. 2 Oct. 8/3 Put each young plant in a pot of its own..using..one of the peat-based soilless mixtures.

1938 Sat. Evening Post 20 Aug. 14/2 Having caught the public imagination, soilless farming has the trappings of another ‘bubble’.

1946 Soil Sci. LXII. 71 Artificial or soilless cultures have been used very extensively during the last 30 years in plant nutrition studies.

1974 D. Harris Hydroponics ii. 45 Although called variously ‘aggregate culture’, ‘soil-less culture’, ‘nutriculture’, or ‘chemiculture’, Dr Gericke's term is so universally used that all forms of growing plants without soil are loosely referred to as ‘hydroponics’.