† 1. Without vigor or energy: = LISTLESS. Obs.
c. 1325. Old Age, xi. in E. E. P. (1862), 150. Þe tunge … lostles lowteþ in uch a liþ.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., IV. ix. (Tollem. MS.). A verry flewmatike man is in the body lustles [L. deses], heuy and slow.
c. 1412. Hoccleve, De Reg. Princ., 3881. Whan þat þe paunche is ful, A fume clymbith vp in-to þe heed, And makiþ a man al lustles and al dul.
1549. Coverdale, etc., Erasm. Par. 2 Tim. 24. Preache the worde of the ghospel stronglye, nether beyng frayed with aduersitie nor lustles in prosperitie.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. iv. 20. For in his lustlesse limbs … A shaking fever raignd continually.
1611. Cotgr., Detalenté,… vnwilling, lustlesse, vndisposed, out of the humor.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., XIII. 56. The Throstell, with shrill Sharps; as purposely he song T’awake the lustlesse Sunne.
† 2. Joyless; without pleasure or delight. Obs.
1508. Dunbar, Tua Mariit Wemen, 441. Ȝone lustlese led so lelely scho luffit hir husband.
a. 1586. Sidney, Arcadia, etc. (1622), 493. A lustless song.
3. Without last or sexual appetite.
1586. Marlowe, 1st Pt. Tamburl., III. (1590), C 7. He shall be made a chast and lustlesse Eunuke.
1610. Healey, St. Aug. Citie of God, XXII. xxiv. (1620), 848. The time shall come when we shall doe nothing but enioy our (lustlesse) beauties.
1611. Cotgr., Priapisme, a lustlesse extention, or swelling of the yard.
Hence † Lustlessness.
1556. Olde, Antichrist, 5. To dryue all lustlesnesse and sluggish drowsynes out of our myndes.
1611. Cotgr., Chasteté, chastitie, continencie, lustlesnesse.
