substancelessadj.

1784 F. O'Gallagher Ess. First Princ. Nature: Pt. I iv. i. 160 Unless we are so absurd as to suppose, that..gravity is produced in it [sc. a body] by a spirit, or a substanceless virtue, or by nothing at all.

1816 S. T. Coleridge Human Life in Poems 316 If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state.

1841 D. M. Moir in J. Galt Ann. Parish (new ed.) p. xxxv The arguments..might be..too shadowy and substanceless to convey intellectual satisfaction.

1858 E. Bulwer-Lytton What will he do with It? ix. i You have made that life substanceless as a ghost—that future barren as the grave.

1911 Amer. Year Bk. 1910 405/2 An entire meal was recently prepared in a chemical laboratory without a particle of real food in it—a repast that had all the appearance of wholesome dishes, but was entirely substanceless.

1985 E. W. Soja in D. Gregory & J. Urry Social Relations & Spatial Struct. vi. 103 Space and time for Kant were subjective forms of perception, substanceless and transcendental schemata.

2010 New Yorker 12 July 89/1 David and Alice are themselves curiously substanceless: characters into whom dissatisfactions have been poured.