a. [f. FORM sb. + -LESS.] Devoid of, or wanting in, form; shapeless; having no determinate or regular form. Said both of material and immaterial things.
1591. Spenser, Tears Muses, 499.
| Through knowledge we behold the worlds creation, | |
| How in his cradle first he fostred was; | |
| And iudge of Natures cunning operation, | |
| How things she formed of a formelesse mas. |
1595. Shaks., John, III. i. 253.
| Pand. All forme is formelesse, Order orderlesse, | |
| Saue what is opposite to Englands loue. |
a. 1631. Donne, Poems, Elegie, xv. Julia, 24.
| Legions of mischief, countlesse multitudes | |
| Of formlesse curses, projects unmade up. |
1667. Milton, P. L., III. 11.
| The rising world of waters dark and deep, | |
| Won from the void and formless infinite. |
1680. G. Hickes, Spirit of Popery, 27. That unprescribed Formless way of Worship, which they now use.
1819. Shelley, Cenci, III. i.
| I, whose thought | |
| Is Like a ghost shrouded and folded up | |
| In its own formless horror. |
1869. Tyndall, Chem. Rays, in Fortn. Rev., 1 Feb., 244. This formless aggregate of infinitesimal particles, without definite structure, shows the two-sidedness of the light in the most striking manner.
1870. Morris, Earthly Par., I. I. 169.
| But as along the river’s edge | |
| They went, and brown birds in the sedge | |
| Twittered their sweet and formless tune | |
| In the fair autumn afternoon. |
Hence Formlessly adv.; Formlessness.
1727. Bailey, vol. II., Formlesness.
1825. Coleridge, Aids Refl., App. C. (1858), 394. We leave space dimensionless, an indistinguishable ALL, and therefore the representative of absolute weakness and formlessness, but, for that very reason, of infinite capacity and formability.
1845. Carlyle, Cromwell (1871), I. i. 9. Behold here the final evanescence of Formed human things; they had form, but they are changing into sheer formlessness;—ancient human speech itself has sunk into unintelligible maundering.
1884. Seeley, Goethe, in Contemporary Review, XLVI. Oct., 500. Both Goethe, and in the later years of his life Schiller, were impatient of the formlessness which had begun to reign in literature.
1888. Howells, Annie Kilburn, vi. His long coat hung formlessly from his shoulders.
