a. [OE. bánléas, f. ban, BONE + léas, -LESS.]
Without bones; destitute of bone.
c. 1000. Riddles, xlvi. 3 (Gr.). Þæt banlease bryd.
a. 1225. St. Marher., 18. Blodles ant banles, dumbe ant denue.
1605. Shaks., Macb., I. vii. 5. I would … Haue pluckt my Nipple from his Bonelesse Gummes.
1618. Chapman, Hesiod, II. 25. The bonelesse fish [octopus] doth eat his feet for colde.
1854. Badham, Halieut., 439. The boneless eel of Archestratus was no doubt the lamprey.
b. fig. Wanting ‘backbone’; without ‘stamina’; ‘invertebrate.’
1882. A. B. Hope, Brandreths, III. l. 280. The Lord Chancellor read a Queen’s Speech jubilant with more boneless promises of gigantic reform.
1884. Contemp. Rev., May, 630. Those boneless beings who repeat idiotically all they hear.
