contactlessadj.n.
/ˈkɒntaktləs/, U.S. /ˈkɑntæk(t)ləs/ A. adj.
1. Not involving contact (in various senses); esp. lacking or avoiding social or physical contact.
ΚΠ
1861 Welcome Guest 4 161/1 Groups [of Trappist monks] are..housing themselves, with contactless individualism, into those straight-backed, marble-seated, spine-torturing stalls.
1968 S. Bellow Let. 20 Jan. (2010) 273 It's a peculiarly contactless life, when you're not here.
2020 India Today Online (Nexis) 17 Feb. There had been contactless delivery in China prior to the crisis, when couriers would drop packages at a consumer's door or lobby or place parcels in lockers for later pickup.
2. spec. Relating to or involving technology that allows a credit or debit card, smartphone, etc., to connect wirelessly when placed near an electronic reader, typically in order to make a payment without requiring a signature or manual entry of a PIN; (of a payment) made by means of this technology.
ΚΠ
1986 Financial Times 22 Oct. 14 GEC believes that it is the most advanced in the development of its contactless card, though AT&T in the US and LSI Card Technology in Japan are known to be looking at the technology.
1995 Sydney Morning Herald (Nexis) 14 Mar. (Late ed.) 3 Transcard's trump card from a marketing perspective is its ‘contactless’ technology, which means the card does not need to be passed through a machine but merely passed over it.
2004 Computer Weekly 9 Nov. 12/2 Mastercard announced a..card that includes RFID technology to allow for ‘contactless’ payments.
2015 National Post (Canada) (Nexis) 14 Jan. (Financial Post section) c6 Retailers..see benefits to promoting contactless smartphone payments, such as the ability to process transactions and to integrate loyalty programs and special in-store offers seamlessly.
B. n.
Technology that allows a credit or debit card, smartphone, etc., to connect wirelessly when placed near an electronic reader, typically in order to make a payment without requiring a signature or manual entry of a PIN.
ΚΠ
2004 Card Technol. May 31 A big advantage of contactless is that chips can be embedded in a card, cell phone, or almost anything else, allowing users to wave that device past a reader to pay or identify themselves.
2014 Times (Nexis) 7 July 43 Paying with contactless on transport is often the stepping stone for wider use across other retailers.
2019 A. Feeney I know who You Are ii. 11 I ask for my normal latte and make my way to the till. I use contactless to pay.
Derivatives
ˈcontactlessly adv. without contact; (in later use) spec. (of a payment) made using contactless technology (see sense A. 2).
ΚΠ
1960 Siemens Rev. Mar. 83/2 The desired time duration of the individual programme stages is achieved contactlessly by the connection of suitable AND and OR circuits.
2004 Card Technol. (Electronic ed.) (Nexis) May 30 Near Field Communication technology..allows devices to share information via radio signals, that is, contactlessly, when placed near each other.
2020 N.Z. Herald (Nexis) 10 July a24 We saw a surge in interest from customers wanting to pay contactlessly; they didn't want to be touching Eftpos terminals.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, March 2021; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
<
adj.n.1861