questionless
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle English questionles; equivalent to question + -less.
Adjective
[edit]questionless (comparative more questionless, superlative most questionless)
- (rare) Certain; indubitable; unquestionable; not admitting of question or doubt.
- Asking no questions; unquestioning.
Adverb
[edit]questionless
- (archaic) Certainly; undoubtedly; without question.
- 1633, Peter Heylyn [i.e., Heylin], The Historie of that Most Famous Saint and Souldier of Christ Iesus; St. George of Cappadocia: […], 2nd edition, London: […] Thomas Harper, for Henry Seyle [i.e., Seile] […], →OCLC, page 303:
- [I]n the firſt of Henry the ſixth, the Company of Armorers in London were incorporated by the name of the fraternite of Saint George: which queſtionleſſe reflected on him, though not as Patron ſpecially of this Realme of England, yet as the tutelarie Saint of militarie men. Elſe to what purpose ſhould the Armorers, whoſe trade is onely deſtinate to the uſe of Souldiers, be made a Corporation by his name, and under his protection.
- 1662, Thomas Salusbury, Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Dialogue 2:
- And do not you perceive a shamefull errour therein? But questionlesse you dissemble it.
- 1665, Robert Boyle, “Occasional Reflections. Discourse XVIII. Upon a Giddiness Occasion’d by Looking Attentively on a Rapid Stream.”, in [John Weyland], editor, Occasional Reflections upon Several Subjects. With a Discourse about Such Kind of Thoughts, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Alex[ander] Ambrose Masson; and sold by John Henry Parker, […], published 1848, →OCLC, section IV (Which Treats of Angling Improv’d to Spiritual Uses), page 277:
- [W]hilst I was thus musing, and attentively looking upon the Water, to try whether I could discover the Bottom, it happened to me, as it often does to those that gaze too stedfastly on swift Streams, that my Head began to grow giddy, and my Leggs to stagger towards the River, into which questionless I had fell, if Philaretus had not seasonably and obligingly prevented it.
References
[edit]- John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “questionless”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.