savourlesssavorlessadj.

a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add. 27944) (1975) I. iii. xx. 117 Þe tonge is sauourles þat he may þe bettir fonge alle maner sauour of þinges.

1552 R. Huloet Abcedarium Anglico Latinum Sauourles or wythoute sauoure, inodorus.

1631 Bp. J. Hall Occas. Medit. (ed. 2) (2nd state) §cxxviii The rose-tree hath a sweet flowre, but a savour-lesse root.

1657 J. Trapp Comm. Psalms xxxiv. 8 All flesh is savourles to him that hath tasted of the Spirit.

1842 C. W. Johnson Farmer's Encycl. 880/2 If only two years old, it [sc. mutton] is flabby, pale, and savourless.

1886 A. B. Bruce Mirac. Elem. in Gospels ii. 74 Cast out as savourless salt.

1911 Indianapolis Star 10 Nov. 9/4 A paper bag will not make stale fish nor that which is coarse and savorless tasty. But given good fish it will cook it to the queen's taste.

2007 Sci. Amer. (U.K. ed.) Feb. 20/1 Both the Swedes and Thais were given food that was high in nutrients but consisted of a sticky, savorless paste.

c1425 Myrour to Lewde Men & Wymmen (Harl.) (1981) 72 (MED) This prayer..is to hem sauourles.

1597 Bp. J. Hall Virgidemiarum: 1st 3 Bks. 102 The learned [poem is] too perspicuous... The vnlearned, sauourelesse, because too obscure.

1646 A. Ross New Planet No Planet i. 2 Indeed you are not the fathers of learning, you are onely fathers of your new discoveries and fresh experiments; that is, of new, fond, and savourlesse phansies.

1826 Spirit of Eng. Mag. (Boston, Mass.) 1 Dec. 170/1 She might as well have been born dumb, and but for a few stray noes and yeses, and once in a quarter some savourless inquiry, she might certainly have passed for such.

1876 G. Meredith Beauchamp's Career II. v. 60 It must be a personal enemy now to give us any satisfaction in chastising and slaying. Perhaps by-and-by that will be savourless: we degenerate.

1907 Outlook 12 Oct. 451/2 Most of his jests when repeated seem almost savourless.

1961 P. Larkin Let. 28 Dec. in Sel. Lett. (1992) 337 Such ghastly festivals as the one we have just endured make life seem blacker & bleaker and generally more savourless.

2010 Daily Tel. (Nexis) 6 Aug. 25 The stereotype of the rich man who finds life savourless and without pleasure was not invented simply to keep the poor happy with their lot.

1841 H. F. Chorley Music & Manners France & Germany III. 179 The intrinsic savourlessness of the Mass which it [sc. the orchestra] was performing, a fade composition by Morlacchi.

1919 Evening Courier & Reporter (Waterloo, Iowa) 1 Nov. 6/2 There seemed a general savorlessness to life.

2006 Daily Tel. (Nexis) 22 July (Art section) 13 McKay's political convictions and passions are all massaged and spun to savourlessness by the alienating, anti-democratic machine of modern electoral management.