RESISTLESS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does resistless mean? 

• RESISTLESS (adjective)
  The adjective RESISTLESS has 2 senses:

1. impossible to resist; overpowering

2. offering no resistance

  Familiarity information: RESISTLESS used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RESISTLESS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Impossible to resist; overpowering

Synonyms:

irresistible; resistless

Context example:

what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?

Similar:

overpowering; overwhelming (so strong as to be irresistible)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Offering no resistance

Synonyms:

resistless; unresisting

Context example:

resistless hostages

Similar:

inactive; passive (lacking in energy or will)

 Context examples 

This was the last sentence by which he could weary Catherine's attention, for he was just then borne off by the resistless pressure of a long string of passing ladies.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

I saw his solemn eye melt with sudden fire, and flicker with resistless emotion.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I seem to be in the grasp of some resistless, inexorable evil, which no foresight and no precautions can guard against.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

My limbs now tremble, and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but then a resistless and almost frantic impulse urged me forward; I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The Count saw his victory in my bow, and his mastery in the trouble of my face, for he began at once to use them, but in his own smooth, resistless way:—I pray you, my good young friend, that you will not discourse of things other than business in your letters.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Indomitable, never resting, fighting for seconds and minutes all week, circumventing delays and crushing down obstacles, a fount of resistless energy, a high-driven human motor, a demon for work, now that he had accomplished the week's task he was in a state of collapse.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

This was cowardly: I should have appealed to your nobleness and magnanimity at first, as I do now—opened to you plainly my life of agony—described to you my hunger and thirst after a higher and worthier existence—shown to you, not my resolution (that word is weak), but my resistless bent to love faithfully and well, where I am faithfully and well loved in return.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)