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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

trackless en · ADJ

Pronunciation

  • (Southern-England) audio
  • (General-American) audio
  • /ˈtrækləs/ (General-American, Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

From track (noun) + -less (suffix meaning ‘lacking or without something’).

Meanings

  1. Of a place: not having tracks or paths; pathless, untrodden; also, having had all tracks removed.
    • Associates! Solitude in trackless deserts, / Where locusts, ants, and lizards poorly thrive,— / […] / Were to an honest heart endurable, / Rather than such associates. 1836, Joanna Baillie, “The Bride: A Drama. In Three Acts.”, in Dramas, […], volume III, London: […] Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman, […], →OCLC, Act I, scene ii, page 296:
    • a trackless desert    a trackless forest
    • In a country so vast as Canada, nothing but the railway could possibly save it from remaining a trackless, undeveloped wilderness. 1954 February, Trevor Holloway, “Canada’s Transcontinental Routes”, in The Railway Magazine, London: Tothill Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 127:
    • The two structures remain in a remarkable state of preservation, despite finding themselves adrift and trackless in the County Down countryside, after the closure of the station and the line in the 1950s. 2021 November 3, Joseph Brennan, “Boxes with functions across the centuries”, in Rail, number 943, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 59:
    • At about this point, Seivarden and her two Amaats had made it into a cramped and dim access corridor behind the governor's residence. It had probably at one point been meant for servants to use to go unobtrusively back and forth, but hadn't been used in years; the floor was dusty and trackless. 2015 October, Ann Leckie, Ancillary Mercy, New York, N.Y.: Orbit Books, →ISBN, page 233:
    • "You got two feet, Sethe, not four," he said, and right then a forest sprang up between them; trackless and quiet. 1987 September 16, Toni Morrison, Beloved […], New York, N.Y.: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, published October 1987, →ISBN, page 165:
  2. (literary) Leaving no track or trace when moving; also, not following any track or path.
    • What was it that I loved so well about my childhood's home? / It was the wide and wave-lashed shore, the black rocks crowned with foam! / It was the sea-gull's flapping wing, all trackless in its flight, / Its screaming note, that welcomed on the fierce and stormy night! 1853, Eliza Cook, “The Waters”, in The Poetical Works of Eliza Cook. […], new edition, Philadelphia, Pa.: John Locken, […], pages 97–98:
  3. Of a train, tram, etc.: not running on tracks.
    • a trackless trolley

Deriveds

tracklessly · tracklessness · trackless train

Synonyms

railless

Translations (13)

uk безре́йковий (of a train, tram, etc.: not running on tracks) · es destraciado (of a train, tram, etc.: not running on tracks) · fi radaton (of a train, tram, etc.: not running on tracks) · fi radaton (not following any track or path) · fi jäljetön (of a place: not having tracks or paths) · bg безрелсов (of a train, tram, etc.: not running on tracks) · la invius (of a place: not having tracks or paths) · fi poluton (of a place: not having tracks or paths) · uk безслі́дний (of a place: not having tracks or paths) · fi jäljetön (of a place: having had all tracks removed) · eo senspura (of a place: not having tracks or paths) · fi jäljetön (leaving no track or trace when moving) · cmn 無軌 /无轨 (of a train, tram, etc.: not running on tracks)