soundless

comparative more soundless · superlative most soundless

1. Without sound.

   a soundless tableau

   5 more examples

   Cassius. […] for your words, they rob the Hybla bees, And leave them honeyless. Antony. Not stingless too. Brutus. O yes, and soundless too; For you have stol’n their buzzing, Antony, And very wisely threat before you sting.

   1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]

   The Psalmist observes, That the Heavens declare the glory of God: And indeed, they celebrate his Praises, though with a soundless Voice, yet with so loud a one […] to our intellectual Ears, that he scruples not to affirm, that There is no Speech nor Language where their voice is not heard […]

   1663, Robert Boyle, Some Considerations Touching the Usefulness of Experimental Naturall Philosophy, Oxford: Richard Davis, Essay 2, page 49

   The whole building, with its dark windows and soundless avenues, had an air strikingly forlorn and solitary.

   1797, Ann Radcliffe, chapter 7, in The Italian, volume 2, London: T. Cadell Junior & W. Davies, page 225

   During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hang oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country […]

   1839 September, Edgar Allan Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, volume 5, page 145

   The names of men blow soundless by, My fellows’ and my own.

   1896, A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad, London: Grant Richards, published 1898, XXXVIII, p. 55

   Synonyms: noiseless, silent

2. Not capable of being sounded or fathomed.

   the soundless deep

   3 more examples

   Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat, Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;

   1609, William Shakespeare, “(please specify the sonnet number)”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC

   1614, Christopher Brooke, The Ghost of Richard the Third, London: L. Lisle, “The Legend of Richard the Third,” Nor Wits, nor Chronicles could ere containe, The Hell-deepe Reaches, of my soundlesse Braine.

   This heart’s geography’s map, this limitless small continent, this soundless sea;

   1881, Walt Whitman, “Out from Behind This Mask (To Confront a Portrait)”, in Leaves of Grass, London: David Bogue, page 296

   Synonyms: bottomless, depthless, fathomless, unfathomable, unsoundable