joyless

From joy + -less.

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joyless (comparative more joyless, superlative most joyless)

1. Without joy; unhappy, sad.

   Without Joy, my life is joyless!

   • 2017, Velvel Pasternak, Behind the Music, Stories, Anecdotes, Articles and Reflections, page 225:

     The Besht preached that the simple man, imbued with native faith and able to pray fervently and wholeheartedly with a sense of joy in his heart, was nearer and dearer to God than the learned but joyless formalist spending his whole life in the study of Talmud.

   • 2023 August 24, Cath Clarke, “‘A lot of working-class cinema is so joyless’: Charlotte Regan on her candy-coloured debut Scrapper”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     “It comes from chasing the fun,” says Regan. “A lot of the working-class cinema I grew up watching was so joyless. Endless trauma.”

• See Thesaurus:sad or Thesaurus:cheerless