a. [See -LESS.
In the OE. feadur-léas the first element is the normal form (not elsewhere occurring) corresponding to ON. fǫður genitive of faðer; the word is therefore not in origin a true compound, but a syntactic combination; cf. ON. fǫður-lauss.]
1. Having no father.
c. 1205. Lay., 21897. Þu hauest … vre children imaken faderlese.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 10. Helpen widewen & federlease children.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter, ix. 42. Þe fadirles barn.
c. 1450. Merlin, ii. 35. Sholde ye not haue sought the fadirles childe.
1549. Bk. Com. Prayer, Litany. That it may please thee to … provide for the fatherlesse children and widows.
1594. Shaks., Rich. III., II. ii. 64.
| Daugh. Our fatherlesse distresse was left vnmoan’d, | |
| Your widdow-dolour, likewise be vnwept. |
1600. Holland, Livy, II. 76. The commonwealth was halfe fatherlesse as it were, for the losse of a Consull.
1719. J. Richardson Sc. Connoisseur, 127. We can be satisfied we are not … exposed here in a Fatherless World.
1801. Southey, Thalaba, I. ii.
| The mother and her child, | |
| The widow’d mother and the fatherless boy, | |
| They at this untimely hour | |
| Wander o’er the desert sands. |
1873. Symonds, Grk. Poets, vii. 229, Eurpides’ Orestes.
| How shall I, | |
| Brotherless, friendless, fatherless, alone, | |
| Live on? |
absol. c. 1000. Ags. Ps. xciii. [xciv.] 6. Widwan & wrecan of-sloȝun & feadur-lease of-sloȝun.
c. 1300. Havelok, 75. To þe faderles was he rath.
1382. Wyclif, Jas. i. 27. Pupilles, that is, fadirles or modirles or bothe.
1611. Bible, Ps. lxviii. 5. A father of the fatherlesse.
c. 1737. Dodsley Epitaph, Q. Caroline, Misc. (1777), 227.
| O reader! if thou doubtest of these things, | |
| Ask the cries of the Fatherless, they shall tell thee. |
1813. Shelley, Q. Mab, III. 28.
| Hearest thou not | |
| The curses of the fatherless, the groans | |
| Of those who have no friend? |
2. Of a book, etc.: Without a known author; anonymous. Obs. exc. with intentional metaphor.
1611. Beaum. & Fl., Philaster, IV. ii. There’s already a thousand fatherless tales amongst us.
1641. R. Brooke, Eng. Episc., II. i. 67. A fatherlesse Treatise of Timothy’s Martyrdome.
1732. London Mag., I. 78. To call that a fatherless Story.
1803. Pic Nic, No. 14 (1806), II. 261. She humanely adopted several fatherless essays … that were wandering about the world.
Hence Fatherlessness, fatherless condition.
1727–36. in Bailey.
1832. in Webster; and in later Dicts.
