irisless en · ADJ
Etymology
From iris + -less.
Meanings
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(not-comparable, of eyes) Without irises.
Whether the granite menagerie was Arbo’s idea or the sculptor’s vision is not clear. The animals—a baby rhino, a lion, a hyena, on cocked forelegs, with drooping necks, irisless eyes—watch a horizon that does not exist for the buildings, stoop to drink from an oasis that does not exist for the concrete.
1999, Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist, Fleet (2017), page 245: