wireless

From wire + -less.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈwaɪə.ləs/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈwaɪ(jə)ɹ.ləs/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: wire‧less

wireless (not comparable)

1. Not having any wires.
2. Functioning without an external wired connection.

   wireless headphones

   wireless charging

   • 1914, L. Frank Baum, Tik-Tok of Oz:

     Ozma, observing this action in her Magic Picture, at once caught up a similar instrument from a table beside her and held it to her own ear. The two instruments recorded the same delicate vibrations of sound and formed a wireless telephone, an invention of the Wizard. Those separated by any distance were thus enabled to converse together with perfect ease.

• cordless

• wired

wireless (usually uncountable, plural (dated) wirelesses)

1. (uncountable) The medium of radio communication.

   Only about a hundred years ago, wireless was a new technology.

   • 1935, George Goodchild, chapter 3, in Death on the Centre Court:

     It had been his intention to go to Wimbledon, but as he himself said: “Why be blooming well frizzled when you can hear all the results over the wireless. And results are all that concern me. […]”

2. (uncountable, networking) A wireless connectivity to a computer network.

   If your wireless stops working, try restarting the router.

3. (dated, chiefly UK) A radio set.

   Let's switch on the wireless and listen to the news.

   • 1979, Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes, Bruce Woolley, “Video Killed the Radio Star”:

     I heard you on my wireless back in '52

   • 2021, Otto English, Fake History, page 2:

     In the corner of that dark back room stood a black and white television—their one nod to modernity—and beside it, two old wirelesses and a headset that had not seen action since the TV arrived.

wireless (third-person singular simple present wirelesses, present participle wirelessing, simple past and past participle wirelessed)

1. (dated or obsolete, transitive) To send (a message) by wireless or radio.
   • 1919, William Charles Henry Wood, Flag and Fleet:

     At 3:30 A.M. a huge Zeppelin flew across the British battle line, wirelessing down to any Germans still to the westward the best way to get home.

   • 1933, Robert Byron, First Russia, Then Tibet‎^[1], Part II, Chapter 1:

     Just outside Piraeus we circled low over a capsized fishing-boat, a grisly wreck in the crystal blue water, and wirelessed a description of it to the mainland.

• weirless

Unadapted borrowing from English wireless.

wireless m (invariable)

1. wireless (transmission without wires)

wireless (invariable)

1. (computing) wireless

Borrowed from English wireless.

wireless m (uncountable)

1. (Guernsey) wireless, radio

Unadapted borrowing from English wireless.

wireless m (invariable)

1. (networking) wireless (wireless connectivity to a computer network)

wireless (invariable)

1. (of hardware) wireless (communicating without wired connections)

   Synonyms: (Brazil) sem fio, (Portugal) sem fios

• “wireless”, in Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisboa: Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, 2001–2026
• “wireless”, in Dicionário infopédia da Lingua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2026
• “wireless”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026