JOYLESS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does joyless mean? 

• JOYLESS (adjective)
  The adjective JOYLESS has 1 sense:

1. not experiencing or inspiring joy

  Familiarity information: JOYLESS used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• JOYLESS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not experiencing or inspiring joy

Context example:

joyless evenings

Similar:

funereal; sepulchral (suited to or suggestive of a grave or burial)

mirthless (lacking mirth)

unsmiling (not smiling)

Also:

cheerless; depressing; uncheerful (causing sad feelings of gloom and inadequacy)

unhappy (experiencing or marked by or causing sadness or sorrow or discontent)

sorrowful (experiencing or marked by or expressing sorrow especially that associated with irreparable loss)

Antonym:

joyous (full of or characterized by joy)

Derivation:

joylessness (a feeling of dismal cheerlessness)

 Context examples 

At this point, researchers can only speculate on why accepting your joyless emotions can defuse them, like dark clouds passing swiftly in front of the sun and out of sight.

(Embracing Darker Moods Makes You Feel Better, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Suppose he should be absent spring, summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine and fine days will seem!

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)