nameless

• nameles (obsolete)

From Middle English nameles, equivalent to name +‎ -less. Cognate with Dutch naamloos (“nameless”), German namenlos (“nameless”), Danish navnløs (“nameless”), Swedish namnlös (“nameless”), Icelandic nafnlaus (“nameless, anonymous”).

• Audio (US):

  (file)

nameless (not comparable)

1. Not having a name.

   Synonym: unnamed

   Environmental DNA analysis suggests that the number of species of bacteria that remain nameless to date may well be on the order of many thousands.

2. Whose name is unknown; unidentified or obscured.

   Synonyms: anonymous, deidentified; see also Thesaurus:mysterious

   The culprits shall remain nameless here, as some names have been changed to protect the guilty; just don't let it happen again.

   • 2022 March 2, David Yaffe-Bellany, “Millions for Crypto Start-Ups, No Real Names Necessary”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN, archived from the original on 3 March 2022:

     Victims of rug pulls are often left with little recourse against nameless thieves.

3. Unable to be described or expressed.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:indescribable

   a nameless unease

   a nameless fear

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, “The Plain of Kôr”, in She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC, page 126:

     Minute grew into minute, and still there was no sign of life, nor did the curtain move; but I felt the gaze of the unknown being sinking through and through me, and filling me with a nameless terror, till the perspiration stood in beads upon my brow.

4. (dated, of a child) Illegitimate.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:illegitimate

   • 1953, James Baldwin, “Elizabeth’s Prayer”, in Go Tell It on the Mountain, New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Co., published October 1970, →OCLC, part 2 (The Prayers of the Saints), page 175:

     He said that he would cherish her until the grave, and that he would love her nameless son as though he were his own flesh.

5. Not well-known; not having made a name for oneself.

   Synonyms: fameless, renownless, unsung; see also Thesaurus:unfamous

   • 1886, Horace Eaton Walker, “Harp of my Country”, in The Lady of Dardale and Other Poems, Manchester, N.H.: Browne & Rowe, page 181:

     Nameless and fameless, but tinged with the sadness
     Rising from organs by seraph hands played.

   • 1890, Samuel Rogers, “An Epistle to a Friend”, in Poems by Samuel Rogers, London: George Routledge and Sons, page 74:

     Its upland-lawns, and cliffs with foliage hung,
     Its wizard-stream, nor nameless, nor unsung:

the nameless

1. (obsolete) Vulva.

   Synonyms: name-it-not; see also Thesaurus:vulva

   • 1896, John Stephen Farmer, “Hérison”, in Vocabula Amatoria, page 156:

     Hérison, m. The female pudendum; ‘the nameless’.

• “name-it-not n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present.

• maneless, maleness, salesmen, meanless, Sleemans, Esselman, lameness