The Collaborative International Dictionary
Colorless \Col"or*less\, a.
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Without color; not distinguished by any hue; transparent; as, colorless water; a colorless gas.
Note: [Narrower terms: ashen, bloodless, livid, lurid, pale, pallid, pasty, wan, waxen; neutral; white] [Also See: achromatic, colorless.]
Free from any manifestation of partial or peculiar sentiment or feeling; not disclosing likes, dislikes, prejudice, etc.; as, colorless music; a colorless style; definitions should be colorless.
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having lost its normal color.
Note: [Narrower terms: blanched, etiolate, etiolated, whitened; bleached, faded, washed-out, washy; dimmed, dulled, grayed; dirty; dull, sober, somber, subfusc] colored
Syn: colorless, uncolored, uncoloured.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
late 14c., from color (n.) + -less. Figurative sense of "lacking vividness" is recorded from 1861. Related: Colorlessness.
Wiktionary
a. (standard spelling of from=American spelling lang=en colourless)
WordNet
adj. lacking in variety and interest; "a colorless and unimaginative person"; "a colorless description of the parade" [syn: colourless] [ant: colorful]
weak in color; not colorful [syn: colourless] [ant: colorful]
Usage examples of "colorless".
I anointed myself with oil after showering with a non allergenic and colorless soap.
Farther along, the head-high thickets of tule and bullrush that had masked the stream could be seen to be colorless, rotting in the pollution of that narrow place.
Then, slowly, the fog faded, and the ridged plains of Felis Dorsa emerged out of the haze, at first misty and colorless, and then, as the dust raised by the landing thinned out, sharply delineated.
He stood there in a misshapen overcoat of Hesh that turned from brown to green and then colorless in the morning light, fell off in globs onto the floor.
Then he lay back in the chair and surveyed her from half-closed eyes, colorless in a face tanned like saddle-leather.
Now it was colorless, beautiful in a skeletal way, the bandshell empty, the fountain turned off for the winter, the brownstone city hall capped by white snow.
He was a little chap, with a colorless face and the whitest, blankest eyes I ever saw.
Qrista raised her colorless eyebrows, and Tharion sat forward, wondering what his wife was about to do.
Vess is alone again, behind the wheel of his ark, in a colorless world of gray rain, black shadows, and sparkling white headlight beams, at peace to commune with the redwoods and draw from them a measure of their power.
What no bird expert can do, Amsel could: he was able to distinguish as individuals the members of a crowd bevy congress of sparrows, whom everybody believes to be equally colorless.
It may have been mere fancy, but to the tourists the air seemed thin, and the scene, artistically speaking, was cold and colorless.
He had various kinds of colored and colorless wines and brandies, with unpronouncable names, imported from China in little crockery jugs, and which he offered to us in dainty little miniature wash-basins of porcelain.
As beautiful as he found herher black locks and blue eyes igniting some very uncomfortable flames of imaginationthe images were always somehow hollow, colorless at heart, lacking the amber-and-rose glow such daydreams had possessed when Carline had been a distant, unapproachable, and unknown figure.
This hideous specimen of decaying vice, trotting in red heels--for Valerie dressed the man as beseemed his income, his cross, and his appointment--horrified Crevel, who could not meet the colorless eyes of the Government clerk.
And if a mason beat his stone as an ignorant contadino might beat his beasts, the rich warm glowing breathing material became dull, colorless, ugly.