1554. T. Martin, Marr. Priests, xiv. Mm ij b. [They] were nowe able … to treade vnder fote the head of their lustes, as of a stingles serpent.
1601. Shaks., Jul. C., V. i. 35. Your words, they rob the Hibla Bees, And leaue them Hony-lesse. Ant Not stinglesse too.
1604. Webster, Marston’s Malcontent, Induct. A 3 b. There are a sort of discontented creatures that beare a stinglesse enuie to great ones.
1618. Chapman, Hesiod’s Georg., I. 15. The slothfull man is like the sting-lesse Drone.
1724. Derham, in Phil. Trans., XXXIII. 55. These sting-less Male Wasps.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., iii. (1873), 59. In Australia the imported hive-bee is rapidly exterminating the small, stingless native bee.
1872. Minto, Eng. Prose Lit., I. i. 52. So playful and stingless is his humour.
