idlesse
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English[edit]
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
idlesse (uncountable)
- (obsolete) idleness
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 378:
- All which my daies I haue not lewdly spent,
Nor spilt the blossome of my tender yeares
In ydlesse.
- 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 143:
- A maiden was seated apart from her companion, the very flowers scattered neglected by her side; but it was obvious that idlesse—that first sweet symptom of love—was pleasanter than her graceful task; for the colour was rich upon her cheek, and the smile parted her scarce conscious lips.
- 1838, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Earth and her Praisers” in The Seraphim, and Other Poems, London: Saunders & Otley, p. 242,[1]
- Next a lover, with a dream
- ’Neath his waking eyelids hidden;
- And a frequent sigh unbidden'
- And an idlesse all the day
- Beside a wandering stream;
References[edit]
- “idlesse”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.