☼ Concept Map

''listless'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260915190735-00-⌔

listless - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

listless (comparative more listless, superlative most listless)

  • Lacking energy, enthusiasm, or liveliness.
    • ✤ Synonyms: languid, spiritless; see also Thesaurus: apathetic
    • ✤ I passed whole days on the lake alone in a little boat, watching the clouds, and listening to the rippling of the waves, silent and listless.1
    • ✤ What an entirely different set of beings were those Stokesley children in lesson-time… Poor, listless, stolid, deplorable logs, with bowed backs and crossed ankles, pipy voices and heavy eyes!2
    • ✤ The scene with Mrs. Wallace had broken his spirit, and he was listless now, indifferent to what happened.3
    • ✤ “Listless, inattentive, distracted,” he recited. “A daydreamer. Tries his best, but is too slow.”4

Etymology

From Middle English lystles, equivalent to list (“desire”) +‎ -less.5 Compare German lustlos and Dutch lusteloos (“lethargic, listless”). Doublet of lustless.

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈlɪstlɪs/, /ˈlɪstləs/
  • Audio (US): 🔊

Printed 2026-09-15.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter I, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume III, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC, pages 2–3: ↩

  2. 1861, Charlotte M. Yonge, chapter 6, in The Stokesley Secret: ↩

  3. 1901, William Somerset Maugham, chapter 21, in The Hero: ↩

  4. 2005 November 29, Aryn Baker, “John Hardy: Bali Guy”, in Time: ↩

  5. “listless, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000. ↩