a. [f. BODY + -LESS.]
1. Having no body, no material form or being; incorporeal; without substance, unsubstantial.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., II. ii. (1495), 27. Angel is substancia intellectuall alway mouable . free and bodylesse.
1561. T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., III. 266. A vain bodylesse shew of fayth doth not iustifie.
1602. Shaks., Ham., III. iv. 138. This is the very coynage of your Braine, This Bodilesse Creation extasie Is very cunning in.
1610. W. Folkingham, Art of Survey, II. vi. 58. Gum-water, very thinne and bodilesse.
1733. Swift, Legion Club, Wks. 1755, IV. I. 203. Phantoms bodiless and vain.
1868. Robertson, Serm., Ser. IV. xxix. 221. Man becomes for ever a bodiless spirit.
2. Wanting the trunk; trunkless.
1587. Censure loyall Subj. (Collier), 9. My eies saw their traiterous harts burned, and bodilesse heads aduanced to view.
1810. Southey, Kehama, XI. viii. Two winged Hands came in, Armless and bodyless.
1831. Blackw. Mag., XXIX. 219. The bodiless cherubs on our churchyard stones.
Hence Bodilessness.
1869. R. E. Wallis, trans. Delitzsch’s Bibl. Pyschol., 513. It is as little in contradiction to the assumed nakedness referred to by the apostle, i.e. bodilessness, as is the white clothing with which God’s grace clothes the spirits in heaven.
