makeless

Matchless, without equal, peerless.

Adjective

  1. Matchless, without equal, peerless.
    • Consider Cyrus in your cruell thought, A makelesse Prince in riches, and in might. - 1578, “The Complaynt of Henry Duke of Buckingham”, in William Baldwin, editor, The last part [part 3] of the Mirour for magistrates,...
    • That which I mentioned of the makeless Bride [translating Italian unica sposa] Of God the Spirit[…] - 1853, Dante Alighieri, translated by William Cayley, Divine Comedy: The Purgatory, Canto XX, line 97, page 147:
    • I just peeped into the Mediæval Court, in search of the mummy of a cat[…]a bright-eyed little girl directed me to her ancient feline majesty—a thing shapeless and makeless—done up in that queer old mouldering[…] - 1861...
  2. Without a mate; widowed.
    • For, stoode it with the pleasure of his will To marrie me, my fortune is not such, So hard, that I so long should still persist Makelesse alone in wofull widowhood. - 1591, Robert Wilmot, The tragedie of Tancred and...
    • The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife. - 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet IX”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:

Origin

From Middle English makeles, equivalent to make (“companion, mate, equal, peer”) + -less. Cognate with Danish mageløs (“matchless”), Swedish makalös (“incomparable, peerless, matchless”).