rainlessadj.

1557 Earl of Surrey et al. Songes & Sonettes sig. X.iiii^v Gaping ground that raineles can not close.

1596 J. Norden Progr. Pietie f. 44 No shaft, no shot, no rainles cloude Can daunt his spouse with wo.

1606 J. Sylvester tr. G. de S. Du Bartas Deuine Weekes & Wks. (new ed.) ii. iii. 72 Raine-les, their soile is wett.

1778 W. Marshall Memorandum in Minutes Agric. Southern Counties (1799) II. 263 Where is that vast abundance of watery particles, which must have been exhaled, during that almost rainless summer?

1825 T. Wade Tasso & Sisters 38 Light as a rainless cloud upon the skies.

1842 J. Wilson Recreations Christopher North I. 359 An hour of rainless sunshine.

1854 H. Miller My Schools & Schoolmasters xxi. 437 The sandy deserts of the rainless districts of Chili.

1877 Cent. Mag. July 393/2 The year 1877 will long be remembered as exceptionally rainless and distressing.

1909 Chambers's Jrnl. Dec. 809/2 Mitchell grass is said to be able to survive a rainless period extending over three years.

1930 R. Campbell Adamastor 97 A glory, such as from scant seed The thirsty rocks suffice to breed Out of the rainless glare.

1977 J. L. Harper Population Biol. Plants 329 The rainfall that entered the soil contributed to a volume of stored water which was then drawn upon through succeeding rainless periods.

2004 New Yorker 17 May 89/3 The air is rainless, absolutely neutral.

1848 A. Henfrey tr. M. J. Schleiden Plant xi. 294 The glow of the African desert, its dry rainlessness.

1879 I. L. Bird Lady's Life Rocky Mts. 2 The look of long rainlessness, which one may not call drought.

1884 Macmillan's Mag. Nov. 18/2 A diminished rainfall warned the planters that treelessness means rainlessness.

1924 Nebraska State Jrnl. 14 Feb. 6/5 The essential character of a desert is rainlessness.

1997 B. C. Richardson Econ. & Environment Caribbean iii. 78 The Barbadian drought of 1894–95 was by no means an undifferentiated period of rainlessness.