resistless

English

Etymology

From resist +‎ -less.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈzɪstləs/
• 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, The Faerie Queene, V.1:

     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. 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, 365-7, [1]

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

   • 1818, Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, Chapter IV, [2]

     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, New York: The Modern Library, 1921, pp. 64-5, [3]

     I seize the descending man and 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.]

Anagrams

• sisterless