fruitlesse
English
Adjective
fruitlesse (comparative more fruitlesse, superlative most fruitlesse)
- Obsolete spelling of fruitless
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938, stanza 55, page 287:
- Here alſo ſprong that goodly golden fruit, / With which Acontius got his louer trew, / Whom he had long time ſought with fruitleſſe ſuit; […]
- 1634, Iohn Downame [i.e., John Downame], “How We Must Arme Our Selues against Satans Tentations, whereby Hee Laboureth to Make the Word of God Fruitlesse”, in The Christian Warfare against the Deuill[,] World and Flesh: […], 4th corrected and enlarged edition, London: Printed by William Stansby [for Philemon Stephens and Christopher Meredith], OCLC 222462993, page 181, column 1:
- [I]f we preſent our ſelues, raſhly and vnaduiſedly, as if we went to a play, or to diſpatch ſome worldly buſineſſe; wee ſhall hardly keepe our minds from negligent wandring and worldly diſtractions, which will make the Word of God fruitleſſe and vnprofitable.
- 1658, Thomas Browne, “The Garden of Cyrus. […]. Chapter V.”, in Hydriotaphia, Urne-buriall, […] Together with The Garden of Cyrus, […], London: […] Hen[ry] Brome […], OCLC 48702491; reprinted as Hydriotaphia (The English Replicas), New York, N.Y.: Payson & Clarke Ltd., 1927, OCLC 78413388, page 192:
- According to that Cabaliſticall Dogma: If Abram had not had this Letter [i.e., ה (he)] added unto his Name he had remained fruitleſſe, and without the power of generation: […] So that being ſterill before, he received the power of generation from that meaſure and manſion in the Archetype; and was made conformable unto Binah.
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