voicelessadj.n.

Brit.

/ˈvɔɪslᵻs/, U.S.

/ˈvɔɪslᵻs/

Forms: see voice n. and -less suffix.

Origin: Formed within English, by derivation. Etymons: voice n., -less suffix.

Etymology: < voice n. + -less suffix. Compare voiceful adj.

A. adj.

a. Having no voice; lacking the power or impulse to make vocal sounds; uttering no words or speech; dumb, mute.

ΘΚΠ

the world > physical sensation > hearing and noise > voice or vocal sound > loss or lack of voice > [adjective]

mutec1400

silenta1425

voiceless1535

noteless1826

unvoiceful1872

the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > vocal disorders > [adjective] > dumb

speechlessa1000

dumbc1000

deaf and dumb?c1225

mutec1400

tongueless1447

voiceless1535

wordless1648

tongue-tied1707

deaf-dumb1822

deaf-mute1837

utterless1854

unspeakable1888

1535 Bible (Coverdale) Acts viii. D As a lambe voycelesse [Gk. ἄϕωνος] before his sherer, so opened he not his mouth.

1595 H. Chettle Piers Plainnes Prentiship sig. D2 Aeliana..with crying voyceles, and sorrowe senseles, lay at the mercy of an inhuman sauage.

1641 T. Beedome Poems sig. B2^v The birds are voicelesse 'cause they cannot heare The wonted musicke of his well-inn'd spheare.

1791 ‘P. Pindar’ Rights of Kings 11 Like a brandy-drinker..Pale, hobbling, voiceless, crawling to decay, Just like a passing shadow, sinks away!

1817 P. B. Shelley Laon & Cythna x. xii. 218 Peace in the silent streets! save when the cries Of victims to their fiery judgement led, Made pale their voiceless lips.

1854 T. De Quincey Eng. Mail Coach in Select. Grave & Gay XIII. 353 Clinging to the horns of the altar, voiceless she stood.

1859 Ld. Tennyson Enid in Idylls of King 60 Mute As creatures voiceless thro' the fault of birth.

1903 A. C. Stark & W. L. Sclater Birds S. Afr. III. 122 The Narina, so called by Levaillant.., is found only in thick bush, where it creeps about or sits motionless and voiceless.

1921 T. Tupper Grit in B. Williams O. Henry Prize Stories of 1921 (1922) 296 A weary, voiceless, man, he had told her nothing.

1992 E. A. Proulx Postcards iii. xxxiii. 185 He helped Ben, trembling and voiceless, into the big house.

b. Of an immaterial thing: that makes no sound; unable to produce sound.

ΚΠ

1593 R. S. Phœnix Nest 32 Voicelesse silence gan to chace away Noyses and sounds, with their molesting iars.

1638 R. Brathwait Psalmes Paraphr. xix. 31 No speech, no language like their owne, to make their meaning found: Their voicelesse voice all eares have knowne, all heard their soundlesse sound.

1720 A. Hill Gideon ii. 52 Voiceless o'er the Awe-hush'd Camp, profound Attention creeps.

1796 S. T. Coleridge Ode Departing Year 10 Alone, Voiceless and stern, before the Cloudy Throne Aye Memory sits.

1883 Fortn. Rev. Dec. 766 It is the public good which is so often powerless and voiceless in presence of the audacity of private wrong.

1908 W. Carleton Drifted In 96 'Twas his to study that voiceless past That makes our own antiquity vast Beyond computing.

2001 N.Z. Herald (Nexis) 10 Dec. Marcel Marceau brings to audiences..a realm where voiceless imagination rules over invisible matter.

c. Chiefly poetic. Of a place: characterized by the absence of sound or noise; soundless, still.

ΘΚΠ

the world > physical sensation > hearing and noise > inaudibility > [adjective] > silent > of places or times

stillc1275

quieta1382

silent1559

as silent as the grave1613

cosh1803

soundless1816

voiceless1816

1816 P. B. Shelley Alastor 46 Motionless, As their own voiceless earth and vacant air.

1850 ‘S. Yendys’ Roman viii. 148 The sweet content of voiceless woods After the nightingale.

1868 W. Lockyer & J. N. Lockyer tr. A. Guillemin Heavens (ed. 3) 156 To an inhabitant of the Earth, our light-giver by night would appear..but a silent and voiceless desert.

1914 W. S. Blunt Poet. Wks. I. 310 What to the eye of faith were the hills worth, The voiceless forests, the unpeopled coasts, The wildernesses void of sentient mirth?

1963 K. Rexroth Coll. Shorter Poems (1966) 34 The moon lured voyagers sleep In all the voiceless city.

2001 R. B. Duplessis Drafts 1–38, Toll ix. 55 The shadows of..whatever voiceless space collected behind, and beyond.

a. Without a share in the control, management, or government of something.

ΘΚΠ

society > authority > lack of power > [adjective] > having no control of affairs

voicelessa1634

a1634 E. Coke Inst. Lawes Eng. (1648) iv. i. 5 The Proctors of the Clergy..were voicelesse Assistants;..and having no voices, and so many learned Bishops having voices, their presence is not now holden necessary.

1854 M. Willson Outl. Hist. (1864) iii. viii. 762 A voiceless forum and a deserted senate only imbittered the remembrance of past glories and virtues.

1927 Times 27 May 17/6 A body of members..are now almost wholly voiceless and powerless in matters of high policy.

1983 B. J. Fitzpatrick Catholic Royalism Departm. of Gard vi. 163 [Protestant conservatives] had no option but to move towards the Catholic and legitimist party of order, knowing all the while that they were bound to be a voiceless minority in that party.

2004 New Straits Times (Malaysia) (Nexis) 13 Dec. The PFP will continue to cooperate with the KMT, but the possibility of a merger remains elusive. ‘We will not be a voiceless party in future,’ said Mr Soong.

b. More generally: without a right or power to express feelings or opinions; silent.

ΘΚΠ

the mind > language > speech > taciturnity or reticence > [adjective]

unspeakinga1382

speechless1390

mutec1400

dumb1406

silenta1425

peaceablec1425

secretc1440

of few wordsa1500

tongue-tied1529

mum1532

closec1540

strait-laced1546

tongue-dumb1556

incommunicable1568

sparing1568

inconversable1577

retentive1599

wordless1604

mumbudget1622

uncommunicable1628

monastica1631

word-bound1644

on (also upon) the reserve1655

strait-mouthed1664

oyster-like1665

incommunicative1670

mumchance1681

speechless1726

taciturnous1727

tongue-tacked1727

monosyllabic1735

silentish1737

untalkative1739

silentious1749

buttoned-up1767

taciturn1771

close as wax1772

untittletattling1779

reticent1825

voiceless1827

say-nothing1838

unremonstrant1841

still1855

unvocal1858

inexpansive186.

short-tongued1864

non-communicating1865

tight-lipped1876

unworded1886

chup1896

tongue-bound1906

shut-mouthed1936

zip-lipped1943

shtum1958

1827 Asiatic Jrnl. & Monthly Reg. Sept. 365/2 Lamenting over ‘the fettered and voiceless press’ in India.

1863 J. G. Holland Lett. to Joneses (1864) ix. 129 The world will never come to you..you must go to the world or die voiceless.

1884 Pall Mall Gaz. 28 June 1/1 The surrender of the voiceless, helpless masses of the population to their Turkish taskmasters.

1900 Times 16 Apr. 10/3 I will transgress no more but endeavour to carry out silently the duties of that voiceless machine, the ordinary British soldier.

1970 E. L. Schapsmeier & F. H. Schapsmeier Prophet in Politics i. 5 There is no doubt that Wallace felt an inner duty to speak for the voiceless masses.

2007 Guardian (Nexis) 3 Aug. 33 This new parliamentary group were..in the first place simply the political voice of the labouring people of the country who had been voiceless before.

3. Chiefly poetic. Not expressed or uttered by the voice or in speech; unspoken, unuttered.

ΘΚΠ

the mind > language > speech > taciturnity or reticence > [adjective] > not expressed in speech

speechless1600

wordless1604

tacid1651

voiceless1816

1816 Ld. Byron Childe Harold: Canto III xcvii. 53 I live and die unheard, With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.

1839 H. W. Longfellow Footsteps of Angels ix Uttered not, yet comprehended, Is the spirit's voiceless prayer.

1862 T. C. Grattan Beaten Paths II. 218 A dead silence followed the fall of the curtain; and I felt..the voiceless verdict of ‘damnation’.

1891 H. G. Cone Ride to Lady 27 The dull, mean-headed, silent snake, Like voiceless doubt that creeps and breeds.

1958 Times 26 Feb. 6/3 The nation, which nevertheless assailed by the voiceless fears of depression, is still going to take a lot of convincing.

2000 G. I. Castillo-Feliú Culture & Customs Chile vii. 147 What had begun as a muted and simple way for women to express their voiceless suffering had become an integral part of Chilean folk art.

4. Chiefly poetic. That causes loss of speech or vocal utterance; characterized by a paralysing effect on the power of speech.

ΚΠ

1818 Ld. Byron Childe Harold: Canto IV lxxix. 42 The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe.

1843 Chambers's Edinb. Jrnl. 25 Feb. 47/2 Her lips parted with a voiceless agony.

1879 A. W. Tourgée Fool's Errand xxxiv. 225 Dumb mouths which spoke of the voiceless agony of death.

1909 H. T. M. Bell Poems 20 Some are here, O God, to-day, Here with their voiceless grief.

1997 Hindu (Nexis) 14 Dec. 11/2 All talk of India's freedom is useless so long as men starve and go naked in the country, pining away in voiceless anguish.

5. Phonetics. Produced or uttered without vibration of the vocal cords. Opposed to voiced.

a. Of a speech sound, esp. a consonant.

ΘΚΠ

the mind > language > linguistics > study of speech sound > speech sound > voiced or voiceless sound gen > [adjective] > voiceless

sharp?1533

surd1767

breathed1835

voiceless1842

unvoiced1886

unvoiced1894

1842 Penny Cycl. XXII. 429/2 The voiceless consonants are represented by the consonant letters in the following words: up, at, ark, if, [etc.].

1874 A. J. Ellis On Early Eng. Pronunc. IV. iv. xi. 1333 The great relations between voiced and voiceless consonants.

1894 O. F. Emerson Hist. Eng. Lang. xiv. 241 The shift from voiceless to voiced in certain positions has taken place since Teutonic times.

1934 Lang. 10 60 French has a voiceless or whispered l in the pausal forms of such words as oncle, peuple, simple.

1991 Trans. Philol. Soc. 89 i. 53 In that event the articulation of final /f/ would have reverted to the voiceless allophone of that phoneme.

b. Of breath.

ΚΠ

1871 F. M. Müller tr. W. von Brücke in Lect. Sci. Lang. (ed. 6) II. iii. 159 They stand to the sonant fricative sounds (the voiced breaths) in the same relation as the tenues to the non-sonant (the voiceless breaths).

1950 Speculum 25 339 Here final vowels in pause-position begin voiced and end unvoiced, that is with voiceless breath for a moment after the voicing has ceased.

1967 Bull. School Oriental & Afr. Stud. 30 577 Practically simultaneous release of the oral closure with relaxation or partial release of the glottal closure, resulting in an escape of voiceless breath.

2005 M. J. Ball & N. Müller Phonetics for Communication Disorders xix. 302 The audible voiceless breath flow was interpreted as an added /h/.

B. n.

Usually with the: voiceless people as a class (in various senses).

ΚΠ

1849 E. J. Bayard in R. W. Griswold Female Poets of Amer. 358 Voice of the voiceless! Graves give up their dead, And at thy word departed echoes ring.

1890 C. W. R. Cooke Four Years in Parl. 69 By the voiceless I mean the men who have the capacity to speak, and the desire, but have missed their opportunities.

1920 G. Sterling Lilith iv. iii. 88 To skies unanswering and heavens austere The faith of man pours yet its ancient cry, He to the Voiceless raising still his voice.

1979 Church Times 19 Oct. 2/5 Scorn and unconcern for the powerless and the voiceless.

2005 Independent 14 Nov. 14/4 The artist responsible for the National Maritime Museum project..said she was motivated by a desire to allow the voiceless in society to be heard.

This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2008; most recently modified version published online December 2021).

单词	voiceless
释义	voicelessadj.n. Brit. /ˈvɔɪslᵻs/, U.S. /ˈvɔɪslᵻs/ Forms: see voice n. and -less suffix. Origin: Formed within English, by derivation. Etymons: voice n., -less suffix. Etymology: < voice n. + -less suffix. Compare voiceful adj. A. adj. 1. a. Having no voice; lacking the power or impulse to make vocal sounds; uttering no words or speech; dumb, mute. ΘΚΠ the world > physical sensation > hearing and noise > voice or vocal sound > loss or lack of voice > [adjective] mutec1400 silenta1425 voiceless1535 noteless1826 unvoiceful1872 the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > vocal disorders > [adjective] > dumb speechlessa1000 dumbc1000 deaf and dumb?c1225 mutec1400 tongueless1447 voiceless1535 wordless1648 tongue-tied1707 deaf-dumb1822 deaf-mute1837 utterless1854 unspeakable1888 1535 Bible (Coverdale) Acts viii. D As a lambe voycelesse [Gk. ἄϕωνος] before his sherer, so opened he not his mouth. 1595 H. Chettle Piers Plainnes Prentiship sig. D2 Aeliana..with crying voyceles, and sorrowe senseles, lay at the mercy of an inhuman sauage. 1641 T. Beedome Poems sig. B2^v The birds are voicelesse 'cause they cannot heare The wonted musicke of his well-inn'd spheare. 1791 ‘P. Pindar’ Rights of Kings 11 Like a brandy-drinker..Pale, hobbling, voiceless, crawling to decay, Just like a passing shadow, sinks away! 1817 P. B. Shelley Laon & Cythna x. xii. 218 Peace in the silent streets! save when the cries Of victims to their fiery judgement led, Made pale their voiceless lips. 1854 T. De Quincey Eng. Mail Coach in Select. Grave & Gay XIII. 353 Clinging to the horns of the altar, voiceless she stood. 1859 Ld. Tennyson Enid in Idylls of King 60 Mute As creatures voiceless thro' the fault of birth. 1903 A. C. Stark & W. L. Sclater Birds S. Afr. III. 122 The Narina, so called by Levaillant.., is found only in thick bush, where it creeps about or sits motionless and voiceless. 1921 T. Tupper Grit in B. Williams O. Henry Prize Stories of 1921 (1922) 296 A weary, voiceless, man, he had told her nothing. 1992 E. A. Proulx Postcards iii. xxxiii. 185 He helped Ben, trembling and voiceless, into the big house. b. Of an immaterial thing: that makes no sound; unable to produce sound. ΚΠ 1593 R. S. Phœnix Nest 32 Voicelesse silence gan to chace away Noyses and sounds, with their molesting iars. 1638 R. Brathwait Psalmes Paraphr. xix. 31 No speech, no language like their owne, to make their meaning found: Their voicelesse voice all eares have knowne, all heard their soundlesse sound. 1720 A. Hill Gideon ii. 52 Voiceless o'er the Awe-hush'd Camp, profound Attention creeps. 1796 S. T. Coleridge Ode Departing Year 10 Alone, Voiceless and stern, before the Cloudy Throne Aye Memory sits. 1883 Fortn. Rev. Dec. 766 It is the public good which is so often powerless and voiceless in presence of the audacity of private wrong. 1908 W. Carleton Drifted In 96 'Twas his to study that voiceless past That makes our own antiquity vast Beyond computing. 2001 N.Z. Herald (Nexis) 10 Dec. Marcel Marceau brings to audiences..a realm where voiceless imagination rules over invisible matter. c. Chiefly poetic. Of a place: characterized by the absence of sound or noise; soundless, still. ΘΚΠ the world > physical sensation > hearing and noise > inaudibility > [adjective] > silent > of places or times stillc1275 quieta1382 silent1559 as silent as the grave1613 cosh1803 soundless1816 voiceless1816 1816 P. B. Shelley Alastor 46 Motionless, As their own voiceless earth and vacant air. 1850 ‘S. Yendys’ Roman viii. 148 The sweet content of voiceless woods After the nightingale. 1868 W. Lockyer & J. N. Lockyer tr. A. Guillemin Heavens (ed. 3) 156 To an inhabitant of the Earth, our light-giver by night would appear..but a silent and voiceless desert. 1914 W. S. Blunt Poet. Wks. I. 310 What to the eye of faith were the hills worth, The voiceless forests, the unpeopled coasts, The wildernesses void of sentient mirth? 1963 K. Rexroth Coll. Shorter Poems (1966) 34 The moon lured voyagers sleep In all the voiceless city. 2001 R. B. Duplessis Drafts 1–38, Toll ix. 55 The shadows of..whatever voiceless space collected behind, and beyond. 2. a. Without a share in the control, management, or government of something. ΘΚΠ society > authority > lack of power > [adjective] > having no control of affairs voicelessa1634 a1634 E. Coke Inst. Lawes Eng. (1648) iv. i. 5 The Proctors of the Clergy..were voicelesse Assistants;..and having no voices, and so many learned Bishops having voices, their presence is not now holden necessary. 1854 M. Willson Outl. Hist. (1864) iii. viii. 762 A voiceless forum and a deserted senate only imbittered the remembrance of past glories and virtues. 1927 Times 27 May 17/6 A body of members..are now almost wholly voiceless and powerless in matters of high policy. 1983 B. J. Fitzpatrick Catholic Royalism Departm. of Gard vi. 163 [Protestant conservatives] had no option but to move towards the Catholic and legitimist party of order, knowing all the while that they were bound to be a voiceless minority in that party. 2004 New Straits Times (Malaysia) (Nexis) 13 Dec. The PFP will continue to cooperate with the KMT, but the possibility of a merger remains elusive. ‘We will not be a voiceless party in future,’ said Mr Soong. b. More generally: without a right or power to express feelings or opinions; silent. ΘΚΠ the mind > language > speech > taciturnity or reticence > [adjective] unspeakinga1382 speechless1390 mutec1400 dumb1406 silenta1425 peaceablec1425 secretc1440 of few wordsa1500 tongue-tied1529 mum1532 closec1540 strait-laced1546 tongue-dumb1556 incommunicable1568 sparing1568 inconversable1577 retentive1599 wordless1604 mumbudget1622 uncommunicable1628 monastica1631 word-bound1644 on (also upon) the reserve1655 strait-mouthed1664 oyster-like1665 incommunicative1670 mumchance1681 speechless1726 taciturnous1727 tongue-tacked1727 monosyllabic1735 silentish1737 untalkative1739 silentious1749 buttoned-up1767 taciturn1771 close as wax1772 untittletattling1779 reticent1825 voiceless1827 say-nothing1838 unremonstrant1841 still1855 unvocal1858 inexpansive186. short-tongued1864 non-communicating1865 tight-lipped1876 unworded1886 chup1896 tongue-bound1906 shut-mouthed1936 zip-lipped1943 shtum1958 1827 Asiatic Jrnl. & Monthly Reg. Sept. 365/2 Lamenting over ‘the fettered and voiceless press’ in India. 1863 J. G. Holland Lett. to Joneses (1864) ix. 129 The world will never come to you..you must go to the world or die voiceless. 1884 Pall Mall Gaz. 28 June 1/1 The surrender of the voiceless, helpless masses of the population to their Turkish taskmasters. 1900 Times 16 Apr. 10/3 I will transgress no more but endeavour to carry out silently the duties of that voiceless machine, the ordinary British soldier. 1970 E. L. Schapsmeier & F. H. Schapsmeier Prophet in Politics i. 5 There is no doubt that Wallace felt an inner duty to speak for the voiceless masses. 2007 Guardian (Nexis) 3 Aug. 33 This new parliamentary group were..in the first place simply the political voice of the labouring people of the country who had been voiceless before. 3. Chiefly poetic. Not expressed or uttered by the voice or in speech; unspoken, unuttered. ΘΚΠ the mind > language > speech > taciturnity or reticence > [adjective] > not expressed in speech speechless1600 wordless1604 tacid1651 voiceless1816 1816 Ld. Byron Childe Harold: Canto III xcvii. 53 I live and die unheard, With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword. 1839 H. W. Longfellow Footsteps of Angels ix Uttered not, yet comprehended, Is the spirit's voiceless prayer. 1862 T. C. Grattan Beaten Paths II. 218 A dead silence followed the fall of the curtain; and I felt..the voiceless verdict of ‘damnation’. 1891 H. G. Cone Ride to Lady 27 The dull, mean-headed, silent snake, Like voiceless doubt that creeps and breeds. 1958 Times 26 Feb. 6/3 The nation, which nevertheless assailed by the voiceless fears of depression, is still going to take a lot of convincing. 2000 G. I. Castillo-Feliú Culture & Customs Chile vii. 147 What had begun as a muted and simple way for women to express their voiceless suffering had become an integral part of Chilean folk art. 4. Chiefly poetic. That causes loss of speech or vocal utterance; characterized by a paralysing effect on the power of speech. ΚΠ 1818 Ld. Byron Childe Harold: Canto IV lxxix. 42 The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe. 1843 Chambers's Edinb. Jrnl. 25 Feb. 47/2 Her lips parted with a voiceless agony. 1879 A. W. Tourgée Fool's Errand xxxiv. 225 Dumb mouths which spoke of the voiceless agony of death. 1909 H. T. M. Bell Poems 20 Some are here, O God, to-day, Here with their voiceless grief. 1997 Hindu (Nexis) 14 Dec. 11/2 All talk of India's freedom is useless so long as men starve and go naked in the country, pining away in voiceless anguish. 5. Phonetics. Produced or uttered without vibration of the vocal cords. Opposed to voiced. a. Of a speech sound, esp. a consonant. ΘΚΠ the mind > language > linguistics > study of speech sound > speech sound > voiced or voiceless sound gen > [adjective] > voiceless sharp?1533 surd1767 breathed1835 voiceless1842 unvoiced1886 unvoiced1894 1842 Penny Cycl. XXII. 429/2 The voiceless consonants are represented by the consonant letters in the following words: up, at, ark, if, [etc.]. 1874 A. J. Ellis On Early Eng. Pronunc. IV. iv. xi. 1333 The great relations between voiced and voiceless consonants. 1894 O. F. Emerson Hist. Eng. Lang. xiv. 241 The shift from voiceless to voiced in certain positions has taken place since Teutonic times. 1934 Lang. 10 60 French has a voiceless or whispered l in the pausal forms of such words as oncle, peuple, simple. 1991 Trans. Philol. Soc. 89 i. 53 In that event the articulation of final /f/ would have reverted to the voiceless allophone of that phoneme. b. Of breath. ΚΠ 1871 F. M. Müller tr. W. von Brücke in Lect. Sci. Lang. (ed. 6) II. iii. 159 They stand to the sonant fricative sounds (the voiced breaths) in the same relation as the tenues to the non-sonant (the voiceless breaths). 1950 Speculum 25 339 Here final vowels in pause-position begin voiced and end unvoiced, that is with voiceless breath for a moment after the voicing has ceased. 1967 Bull. School Oriental & Afr. Stud. 30 577 Practically simultaneous release of the oral closure with relaxation or partial release of the glottal closure, resulting in an escape of voiceless breath. 2005 M. J. Ball & N. Müller Phonetics for Communication Disorders xix. 302 The audible voiceless breath flow was interpreted as an added /h/. B. n. Usually with the: voiceless people as a class (in various senses). ΚΠ 1849 E. J. Bayard in R. W. Griswold Female Poets of Amer. 358 Voice of the voiceless! Graves give up their dead, And at thy word departed echoes ring. 1890 C. W. R. Cooke Four Years in Parl. 69 By the voiceless I mean the men who have the capacity to speak, and the desire, but have missed their opportunities. 1920 G. Sterling Lilith iv. iii. 88 To skies unanswering and heavens austere The faith of man pours yet its ancient cry, He to the Voiceless raising still his voice. 1979 Church Times 19 Oct. 2/5 Scorn and unconcern for the powerless and the voiceless. 2005 Independent 14 Nov. 14/4 The artist responsible for the National Maritime Museum project..said she was motivated by a desire to allow the voiceless in society to be heard. This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2008; most recently modified version published online December 2021). < adj.n.1535
随便看	orbits orbitsweeper orbitual orbituary orbitude orbity orbivirus orbless orblet orblife orblike orbs orbweaver orbweaving orbweb spider orbwebbed orby orc orc army orc mouth orc speech orc-catcher orc-killer orc-like orca