riderlessadj.

1817 R. C. Sands Bridal of Vaumond iii. xii. 162 And lo! a snorting steed All riderless came bounding on.

1825 H. W. Longfellow Burial Minnisink 38 Leading the war-horse of their chief,..Uncurbed, unreined, and riderless.

1862 H. Kingsley Ravenshoe III. v. 78 He caught a riderless horse, and the cornet mounted.

1883 J. Gilmour Among Mongols xxv. 304 His horse arrives riderless, and he is found dead on the plain.

1901 F. Norris Octopus i. v. 176 At first glance, it appeared as if there were nothing else, a riderless squadron tramping steadily over the upturned plough land of the ranch.

1937 Pop. Mech. Feb. 193/2 Meanwhile, the riderless motorcycle falls to the ground.

1996 Daily Tel. (Sydney) (Nexis) 28 Dec. 88 Jockey Terry Kennedy fell from Sapling but remounted riderless Hiawatha which had lost its jockey.

1874 L. Carr Judith Gwynne v Excluding for a time all dreamy wanderings of the riderless mind.

1960 H. Nemerov New & Sel. Poems 33 I was the silly child who dreamed that riderless cry, and saw the guests run from a ghostly wall, so long before..the houses, Egypt, the great houses, had an end.

1970 J. K. Baxter Coll. Poems (1980) ix. 458 House of sorrow, house of love To which my riderless soul night after night returns.

1989 C. Rumens From Berlin to Heaven (1993) 135 We had left the sleeper Blackly streaming South like an anschluss, A riderless nightmare.