Meanings
comparative more characterless · superlative most characterless
- Having no distinguishing character or quality.
In recent times, the track has been straightened out and a new, somewhat characterless, station has been built just to the east.
2025 April 2, “Saluting Scotland's magnificent Inter 7?”, in RAIL, number 1032, page 552 more examples
The great mass of American citizens estimate us, as being a characterless and purposeless people ; and hence we hold up our heads, if at all, against the withering influence of a nation's scorn and contempt.
1855, William Cooper Nell, Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Colored Patriots of the American RevolutionThe House of All Sorts was new and characterless. It had not yet found itself—and an apartment house takes longer to find itself than do individual private houses.
1944, Emily Carr, “Friction”, in The House of All Sorts - Lacking in or devoid of personality.
It was her virtue to be tall, pale, characterless and effaced by partial speechlessness.
1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, →OCLC, page 161 more example
The letter within was written in the same straggling, characterless caligraphy, — I should have said, had I been asked offhand, that the whole thing was the composition of a servant girl.
1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectivelacking distinct or individual characteristics; dull and uninteresting
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Ancient Greekχαράσσω (kharássō)
- Ancient Greekχαρακτήρ (kharaktḗr)
- Latincharactēr
- Old Frenchcaractere
- Middle Englishcaracter
- Englishcharacter
- Proto-Indo-European*lewh₁-
- Proto-Indo-European*lewHs-
- Proto-Germanic*leusaną
- Proto-Germanic*lausaz
- Englishcharacterless
Translations
German charakterlos
- charakterloshaving no distinguishing character or quality
Spanish anodino
- anodinohaving no distinguishing character or quality
Cite this entry
characterless. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/characterless
“characterless.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/characterless. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “characterless,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/characterless.
Source: characterless on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.