resistless

English

Etymology

From resist +‎ -less.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈzɪstləs/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɹəˈzɪstləs/
• Hyphenation: re‧sist‧less

Adjective

resistless (comparative more resistless, superlative most resistless)

1. That cannot be resisted; irresistible. [from 16th c.]
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     His name was Talus, made of yron mould, / Immoveable, resistlesse, without end […]

   • 1671, John Milton, “Samson Agonistes, […].”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 83, lines 415–420:

     Maſters commands come with a power reſiſtleſs / To ſuch as owe them abſolute ſubjection; / And for a life who will not change his purpoſe? / (So mutable are all the ways of men) / Yet this be ſure, in nothing to comply / Scandalous or forbidden in our Law.

   • 1794, William Blake, The Book of Urizen‎^[1], 365-7:

     Delving earth in his resistless way, / Howling, the Child with fierce flames / Issu'd from Enitharmon.

   • 1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter IV, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC:

     My limbs now tremble, and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but then a resistless, and almost frantic, impulse, urged me forward; I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit.

   • 1855, Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”, in Leaves of Grass, page 45:

     I seize the descending man .... I raise him with resistless will. / O despairer, here is my neck, / By God! you shall not go down! Hang your whole weight upon me.

   • 1889, Lewis Carroll [pseudonym; Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], “[Untitled poem]”, in Sylvie and Bruno, London, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC:

     Is all our Life, then, but a dream / Seen faintly in the golden gleam / Athwart Time's dark resistless stream?

2. Putting up no resistance; unresisting. [from 16th c.]
   • 1861, Elizabeth Gaskell, The Grey Woman:

     All this time they were doing something—I could not see what—to the corpse; sometimes they were too busy rifling the dead body, I believe, to talk; again they let it fall with a heavy, resistless thud, and took to quarrelling.

Anagrams

• sisterless