Meanings
- not comparablefrom (or due to) which one will not, or cannot, return (of a journey, destination, situation, distance, etc.)
They would do an immensity of labor on their returnless journey to the ocean.
1857, S. H. Hammond, Wild Northern Scenes2 more examples
Seventeen years had rolled on their returnless flight since that night of withering sorrow.
1845, Mrs. F. Beavan, Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New BrunswickYou must hear the judge's decision, remorselessly giving up the woman with her children born and unborn, into the hands of their claimants--by them to be carried to the slave prison, and thence to be sold to a returnless distance from the remaining but scattered fragments of her once happy family.
1872, William Still, The Underground Railroad - not comparablewhich will not return
Pass on, returnless year!
1895, Mary Baker Eddy, Pulpit and Press1 more example
—but now false Memory loosed Her time-worn cable from the wilder'd mind, Blotting the chart whereon it loved to gaze Mid the dim ocean of returnless years.—
1827, Lydia Sigourney, Poems, Visit to the venerable Charles Thompson, pages 94–95
Origin
Cite this entry
returnless. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/returnless
“returnless.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/returnless. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “returnless,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/returnless.
Source: returnless on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.