Word.ws English Dictionary

governless

governless adjective: without government; ungoverned; anarchic.

Adjective

governless (not comparable)

  1. (rare) Without government; ungoverned; anarchic.
    • Oh! the heart is a free and a governless thing! / Hence strangely and madly it often will cling / To a glance of the eye, and a smile of the cheek, […]1854, Mary Bayard Clarke, Wood-notes; Or, Carolina Carols, page 86
    • Though the majority of your community's members have no intention of acting up, to host a governless society is to truly tempt fate.2011, Deborah Ng, Online Community Management For Dummies (page 75)

Origin of governless

From govern + -less.

Questions about governless

What does governless mean?
Governless means without government; ungoverned; anarchic.
What part of speech is governless?
Governless is an adjective.

Words near governless in the dictionary

  1. governest
  2. governeth
  3. governing
  4. governing noun
  5. governingly
  6. governless
  7. government
  8. government bond
  9. government bonds
  10. government cheese
  11. government debt

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: governless (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “governless.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/governless. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.