a. Also 6–7 LEAVELESS, q.v. [f. LEAF sb. + -LESS.] Without a leaf; destitute of leaves or foliage. Also fig.

1

1590.  T. Watson, Eclog. Death Walsingham, 217, in Poems (Arb.), 163. Now in the woods be leafelesse eury Tree.

2

1697.  Dryden, Æneid, XI. 13. Above his Arms, fix’d on the leafless Wood, Appear’d his Plumy Crest.

3

1776–96.  Withering, Brit. Plants (ed. 3), III. 390. Shoots very long, rather leafless below.

4

1824.  W. Irving, T. Trav., I. 18. A cold leafless park.

5

1830.  Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 330. Aphyllæ, or Leafless flowerless plants. Ibid. (1839), Introd. Bot. (ed. 3), 127. The petiole may exist without the lamina, as in leafless Acacias.

6

1866.  M. Arnold, Thyrsis, ii. Leafless, yet soft as spring, The tender purple spray on copse and briers!

7

  b.  Leafless tree, the gallows. slang.

8

1830.  Lytton, Paul Clifford, I. xi. 261. Oh! there never was life like the Robber’s … And its end?—why a cheer from the crowd below, And a leap from a leafless tree!

9

  Hence Leaflessness.

10

1818.  Milman, Samor, VIII. 580. Thy o’ershadowing woods One bare, brown leaflessness.

11

1875.  Miss Bird, Sandwich Isl. (1880), 89. Mist, cold, murk, slush, gales, leaflessness, and all the dismal concomitants of an English winter.

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