a. [f. FIN sb. + -LESS.] Without a fin or fins.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., III. i. 151.
| Sometime he angers me, | |
| With telling me of the Moldwarpe and the Ant, | |
| Of the Dreamer Merlin, and his Prophecies; | |
| And of a Dragon, and a finne-lesse Fish, | |
| A clip-wing’d Griffin, and a moulten Rauen, | |
| A couching Lyon, and a ramping Cat, | |
| And such a deale of skimble-skamble Stuffe, | |
| As puts me from my Faith. |
1775. in Ash.
1863. C. A. Johns, Home Walks, 159. A Pipe-fish no one cares to have. This is a thin cylindrical fish, about 12 inches long, of nearly equal diameter throughout, with a blunt head and finless tail, which, but for its moving, might easily be taken for a fragment of Sea-tangs; whence the fishermen call it the ‘Ore-weed fish.’
