Virtueless

a. Also 4–7 vertu-, 6–7 vertue-. [f. VIRTUE sb. + -LESS.]

  1.  Destitute of efficacy or excellence; ineffective, worthless.

c. 1374.  Chaucer, Troylus, II. 344. Wo worth þe faire gemme vertules. Wo worth þat herbe also þat doth no bote.

1390.  Gower, Conf., III. 129. The seconde is noght vertules, Clota or elles Pliades It hatte.

1548.  Udall, etc., Erasm. Par. Mark ix. 58. In the presence of the disciples they depraud the name of Jesu, as a thing vertuelesse, and of no efficacie.

1600.  Fairfax, Tasso, VI. lxviii. And vertuelesse she wisht all herbes and charmes, Wherewith false men encrease their patients harmes.

1627.  Hakewill, Apol., II. v. § 3. I do not consent with them who would make those glorious Creatures of God vertulesse.

c. 1642.  Observ. his Majesty’s late Answ. & Expresses, 9. Parliaments are thus vertulesse and void Courts.

1824.  New Monthly Mag., X. 264. The winds of March … are far from being virtueless.

1856.  Ruskin, Mod. Paint., III. IV. v. § 4. The architecture of Palladio is wholly virtueless and despicable.

  2.  Destitute of virtue or moral goodness; immoral, vicious.

1402.  Hoccleve, Let. of Cupid, 262. But swyche filthes [= low women] as weren vertulesse, they quytten thus, this olde clerkis wisse.

1407.  Scogan, Mor. Balade, 133. That, whan ye come in your juges presence, Ye be not set as vertules behynde.

1533.  More, Apol., x. Wks. 867/2. Howe badde so euer they reken me, I am not yet fullye so vertuelesse, but that [etc.].

1594.  O. B., Quest. Profit. Concern., 23. The strange and monstrous life and death, of a vertulesse recreant.

1602.  How Choose Good Wife, I. i. in Hazl., Dodsley, IX. 9. O, too unkind unto so kind a wife, Too virtueless to one so virtuous.

1650.  Fuller, Pisgah, II. (1869), 112. We know the wicked man’s … name, and yet … his virtueless name shall rot.

1803.  Mary Charlton, Wife & Mistress, I. 307. You are not to become a worthless, virtueless, shameless fine lady.

1847.  G. Harris, Life Ld. Hardwicke, xiii. III. 222. Sallies of indignation, possibly not always altogether virtueless, which on special occasions were wont to emanate from this monarch’s lips.

  Hence Virtuelessness.

1891.  H. S. Constable, Horses, Sport & War, 221. [The] French revolution, which as M. Taine says, was, at bottom, simply the successful rising of the criminal classes,—successful, in consequence of the cowardice, imbecility, and virtuelessness of the other classes.

1891.  Tacoma Daily News, 18 Aug., 1/3.

1897.  Japan Weekly Mail, Nov. 6, 489/2. Men’s wrong acts should be called muchi (stupidity) rather than futoku (virtuelessness).