a. [f. as prec. + -LESS.]
1. Of the features, voice, etc. Destitute of expression; giving no indication of character, feeling, etc.; inexpressive. Const. of.
1831. Wilson, in Blackw. Mag., XXIX. 301. An image as expressionless as the block on which his own buzz-wig was trimmed.
1859. H. Kingsley, G. Hamlyn, I. xiii. 184. He was a small man, with an impenetrable, expressionless face.
1864. Crowdy, Ch. Choirmaster, 53. Monotonic recitation is more expressionless than reading in the ordinary voice.
1870. Dickens, E. Drood, ix. So expressionless of any approach to spontaneity were his face and manner.
b. Expressing nothing, conveying no meaning.
1871. Tylor, Prim. Cult., I. 215. But it may … become by wear of sound and shift of sense an expressionless symbol.
2. That finds no expression.
1819. Shelley, Cenci, III. i. 214. A wrong, Which, though it be expressionless, is such As asks atonement.
Hence Expressionlessly adv. Expressionlessness, the state or condition of being destitute of expression, want of expression.
1865. Cornh. Mag., Aug., 225. Faces … expressive of ‘expressionlessness.’
1876. G. Meredith, Beauch. Career, III. xii. 227. Rosamund eyed her husband expressionlessly.
1888. W. C. Russell, Death Ship, III. 3. Faces whose expressionlessness forbade your comparing them to sleeping dreamers.
