sleeveless

• sleaveless

From Middle English slevelees, sleveles, from Old English slīeflēas (“sleeveless”), equivalent to sleeve +‎ -less.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsliːvlɪs/

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sleeveless (not comparable)

1. (clothing) Of a garment, having no sleeves.
   • 1965, Attila Zohar, Kings Cross Black Magic, Sydney: Horwitz Publications, page 25:

     She wore a short surcoat of scarlet, cut low around the shoulders, sleeveless, reaching just below her hips, like the tabards worn by medieval heralds. Over it she wore a laced-edged cotta.

2. (obsolete) Wanting a cover, pretext, or palliation; unreasonable; profitless; useless.

   a sleeveless errand

   • c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iv], line 8:

     might send that Greekish / whore-masterly villain with the sleeve back to the / dissembling luxurious drab of a sleeveless errand.

   • 1738-1741, William Warburton, The Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated

     The vexation of a sleeveless errand.