Meanings
- not comparablerareLacking food; without food.
c. 1807, William Blake, Vala, or The Four Zoas in Blake: Complete Poems, edited by W. H. Stevenson, Routledge, 3rd edition, 2007, p. 321, lines 187-8, Why does the raven cry aloud & no eye pities her? / Why fall the sparrow & the robin in the foodless winter?
2 more examples
You have spent your last eighty centimes on half a litre of milk, and are boiling it over the spirit lamp. While it boils a bug runs down your forearm; you give the bug a flick with your nail, and it falls, plop! straight into the milk. There is nothing for it but to throw the milk away and go foodless.
1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter III, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLCIn 1938-1939, while I may have been no better off in time than in 1954, I should at least have had the use of a Pullman car in which to obtain a meal, instead of having to spend over 2½ hr. on a foodless and drinkless journey of no more than 77½ miles.
1954 December, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, pages 853-854
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectivebeing without food
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Middle Englishfodeles
- Englishfoodless
From Middle English fodeles, equivalent to food + -less.
More words from Middle English
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Chinese Mandarin 沒有食物, 没有食物
- 沒有食物lacking food
- 没有食物 (méiyǒu shíwù)lacking food
Finnish ruoaton
- ruoatonlacking food
Cite this entry
foodless. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/foodless
“foodless.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/foodless. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “foodless,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/foodless.
Source: foodless on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.