a. [f. COLOUR sb. + -LESS.]
1. gen. Without color.
[c. 1380: see b.]
1660. Boyle, New Exp. Phys.-Mech., xxxvii. 314. Little Bodies, which … are Diaphanous and Colourless.
1756. C. Lucas, Ess. Waters, I. 129, note. Thames water at Richmond is always, in dry weather, perfectly colorless and pellucid.
1878. Huxley, Physiogr., 77. You obtain a colourless and transparent gaseous body.
b. spec. of the complexion: Without any tinge of red; pallid, blanched.
c. 1380. Sir Ferumb., 1164. Þan was Olyuer al colourless for þe blod þat he had schad.
1842. Tennyson, Morte D’Arthur, 213. His face was white And colourless.
1856. Lever, Martins of Cro’ M., 315. The cheeks colourless.
c. Without bright or conspicuous color; dull.
1795. Southey, Joan of Arc, IX. 293. Dark on the upland bank The hedge-row trees distinct and colourless Rose on the grey horizon.
1878. B. Taylor, Deukalion, I. iv. 32. A shadowy colorless landscape.
2. fig. Without distinctive character, vividness or picturesqueness.
1861. Sat. Rev., 8 June, 585. Particular instances are … substituted for general and colourless terms.
1873. Max Müller, Sc. Relig., 155. An ancient colourless and unpoetical religion.
1875. H. Kingsley, No. Seventeen, xxxvii. 289. She was a trifle colourless, perhaps, but she was always resolute enough and good-natured enough.
b. Without any leaning or bias favorable or unfavorable; neutral.
1868. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), II. vii. 102. The tale is told us in a perfectly colourless way.
1880. Bright, Eng. Hist., 1394. The king … fixed upon … a colourless man, as best fitted to carry on the system.
1883. C. Reade, in Harper’s Mag., Dec., 133/2. The words were colorless in themselves, but there was a hard, unfriendly, and superior tone in them.
Hence Colo(u)rlessly adv., in a colorless manner, without brightness or distinctive character.
1883. Standard, 28 March, 3/4. Mr. Leslie Crotty sang well, though rather colourlessly, as Count Arnheim.
