stanchless

English

Etymology

From stanch +‎ -less.

Adjective

stanchless (comparative more stanchless, superlative most stanchless)

1. Incapable of being stanched or stopped.
   • 1594, Michael Drayton, Matilda‎^[1], London: Nicholas Ling and John Busby:

     A stanchlesse hart, dead-wounded, euer bleeding,
     On whom that nere-fild vulture Loue sits feeding.

   • 1819, Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen, “Aspley Wood” Canto 2, stanza 26, in Aonian Hours and Other Poems, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 2nd edition, 1820, p. 82,^[2]

     We see, but cannot heal the stanchless wound,

     We share its gushing sorrow, still it bleeds;

   • 1856, Sydney Dobell, “Home, Wounded”, in England in Time of War‎^[3], London: Smith, Elder & Co., page 105:

     And while I listed long,
     Day rose, and still he sang,
     And all his stanchless song,
     As something falling unaware,
     Fell out of the tall trees he sang among,

   • 1974, Lawrence Durrell, “Sutcliffe, the Venetian Documents”, in Monsieur‎^[4], New York: Viking, published 1975, page 209:

     In his little red notebook the following random thoughts formed and were jotted down, like the slow interior overflow of a stanchless music.

2. (obsolete, figurative) Incapable of being satisfied.
   • c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:

     With this there grows
     In my most ill-composed affection such
     A stanchless avarice that, were I king,
     I should cut off the nobles for their lands,

   • 1612, Michael Drayton, “Song 1”, in [John Selden], editor, Poly-Olbion. Or A Chorographicall Description of Tracts, Riuers, Mountaines, Forests, and Other Parts of this Renowned Isle of Great Britaine, […], London: […] H[umphrey] L[ownes] for Mathew Lownes; I[ohn] Browne; I[ohn] Helme; I[ohn] Busbie, published 1613, →OCLC, page 9:

     This loosness to their spoyle the Troians did allure,
     Who fiercely them assail’d: where stanchlesse furie rap’t
     The Grecians in so fast, that scarcely one escap’t:

Synonyms

• (incapable of being stanched): unstaunchable
• (incapable of being satisfied): unquenchable, insatiable.

Anagrams

• snatchless