pulselessadj.
/ˈpʌlsləs/, U.S. /ˈpəlsləs/ 1. Having or exhibiting no pulse (pulse n.2 1a).
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > disorders of internal organs > disordered pulse or circulation > [adjective] > no pulse
pulseless1651
1651 J. Burbury tr. L. Assarino La Stratonica 109 When the Physicians were come and found the King Pulseless, one of them was not wanting to say softly, He was dead.
1748 S. Richardson Clarissa VII. lx. 219 While warm, tho' pulseless, we pressed each her hand with our lips.
1822 P. B. Shelley Hellas 9 His cold pale limbs and pulseless arteries.
1874 F. G. D. Bedford Sailor's Pocket Bk. viii. 258 In shock the injured person lies pale, faint,..almost pulseless.
1938 E. A. Powell Free-Lance xxi. 173 Stretching the unconscious monarch on the sofa, I..chafed his deathly cold hands and almost pulseless wrists.
1967 Canad. Med. Assoc. Jrnl. 97 1020/1 The superior mesenteric artery was thrombosed and pulseless at its root.
1983 L. Thomas Youngest Sci. xx. 231 He stopped, went over to the man, found him pulseless and not breathing, and set about resuscitation.
2. figurative. Devoid of life, energy, or movement; motionless, lifeless; (also) void of feeling; unfeeling, pitiless, heartless.
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > source or principle of life > absence of life or consciousness > [adjective]
lifelessOE
unlivingOE
bloodless and bonelessOE
deadlya1225
dead1430
natureless1548
exanimate1552
inanimatea1555
unlively1563
spiritless1570
unquickened1610
unanimate1615
inanimal1623
inanimated1646
unvital1661
unanimated1697
unbreathing1709
unconscious1744
pulseless1820
azoic1854
not-living1869
abiotic1873
unvitalized1874
the mind > emotion > compassion > pitilessness > [adjective]
ruthlessc1330
unpiteousa1393
pitilessa1450
unpitifulc1449
unbowelled1592
unpitying1597
brassy1600
tearless1603
incompassionate1611
heartbound1614
uncompassionatea1616
illachrymable1623
compassionless1625
bowelless1649
incomplexionate1660
uncompassionatinga1711
dispiteous1803
pulseless1820
inhumane1822
impiteous1877
1820 C. R. Maturin Melmoth IV. xxviii. 296 To feel hands that we long to press to our burning hearts, touch ours with cool and pulseless tranquillity.
1856 W. E. Aytoun Bothwell ii. ix There he stood, the pulseless man, The calculating lord.
1861 E. S. Kennedy in Peaks, Passes 2nd Ser. I. 170 So often as she came, so often there floated on the pulseless air the gentle moan ‘Mort Aratsch’.
1906 J. London White Fang i. i. 5 Under it all they were men..pitting themselves against the might of a world as remote and alien and pulseless as the abysses of space.
a1961 E. H. Harries in R. Garlick & R. Mathias Anglo-Welsh Poetry (1984) 130 There Feeling dies, and cold as ice The heart grows to a pulseless stone.
1996 Time Out N.Y. 19 June 52/1 Travolta spices up the script with his ultra-cool interpretation of a pulseless psychopath.
Derivatives
ˈpulselessness n. the state or condition of being pulseless (literally or figuratively).
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > disorders of internal organs > disordered pulse or circulation > [noun] > no pulse or stoppage
asphyxia1706
acrotism1822
pulselessness1822
1822 J. M. Good Study Med. III. 389 Though the heart itself should seem to participate in the pulselessness.
1967 Perspectives New Music 6 97 The additive rhythms..of Stravinsky and Bartók, the polytempo writing of Ives..the architectonic pulselessness of Webern.
1995 Thoracic & Cardiovascular Surgeon 43 299 A 58-year-old Japanese woman..was admitted for investigation of facial edema and of pulselessness of the right leg.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2007; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.1651