a. Chiefly Sc. Also fison-, fishion-, fissen-, fiz(z)en-, fusion-, fushionless. [f. FOISON sb. + -LESS.] Wanting substance, strength, or ‘sap’; weak, ineffective, both in a material and immaterial sense. Of grass: Wanting in succulence or nourishing properties.
1721. J. Kelly, Scot. Prov., 104. Fair Folk is ay Fisonless. A Jest upon them who are of a fair Complexion, as if such were weakly, niggardly, or little good with them.
a. 1796. Burns, ‘The Deuk’s dang o’er my Daddle.’
| This seven lang years I hae lien by his side, | |
| An’ he is but a fusionless carlie, O! |
c. 1817. Hogg, A Tale of Pentland, in Tales & Sk. (1837), I. 328. Wo be to this old rusty and fizenless sword, that did not sever his head from his body, when I had a fair chance in the open field!
1824. Scott, St. Ronan’s, xxxii. ‘The wine!—there was hardly half a mutchkin, and puir, thin, fusionless skink it was.’
1837. Carlyle, Misc. (1857), IV. 3. Our very Biographies, how stiff-starched, foisonless, hollow!
1864. Athenæum, No. 1921, 234/2. Very much romance indeed, he thought, there was about the greatest man in a nation lying in a stable loft, and spending his pain-racked midnights amid the perfumes of such an abode, listening to the nags below stirring, stamping, or riving at the fusionless bog hay!
1870. Pall Mall G., 27 Sept., 11. These fusionless idlers who never derange themselves for anything.
1888. R. F. D. Palgrave, in Eng. Hist. Rev., Oct., 745. The ‘wildfire’ proved a very fizzenless mixture; it failed to effect the intention of its contrivers, which was to set Whitehall on fire.
