dinnerless en · ADJ
Etymology
From dinner + -less.
Meanings
-
(not-comparable) Without dinner.
So reduced were their finances, and exhausted their credit, that the acting managers, as they were called, were once obliged to repair to the theatre on the evening of a play, dinnerless.
1788, Robert Hitchcock, chapter 10, in An Historical View of the Irish Stage, volume 1, Dublin, page 157:1944, Frederick Niven, The Transplanted, Toronto: Collins, Part 2, Chapter 7, He had been compelled to sit at a table that was not “serviced” by Marion. Had he waited till a place was free at one of her tables he might have gone dinnerless as the doors would soon be closing.
But the King coming with the main of his Army to the relief of Tisaphernes, fell upon the Grecians Camp, and rifled it, yet when they returned from the pursuit, they recovered it, and beat the King out again, and lodged Supperless in it that night, as well as Dinnerless the day before.
1675, Samuel Clarke, “The Life and Death of Artaxerxes Mnemon”, in The Lives & Deaths of Most of Those Eminent Persons Who by Their Virtue and Valour Obtained the Sirnames of Magni, London: W.B, page 32:The Parents and Citizens Coronation Lunch became so speechy it ended up dinnerless.
1982, Paul Radley, My Blue-Checker Corker and Me, Sydney: Fontana/Collins, page 94:Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head.
1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Chapter 110”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC: