Word.ws English Dictionary

sleeveless

/ˈsliːvlɪs/

sleeveless adjective: of a garment, having no sleeves.

Adjective

sleeveless (not comparable)

  1. Of a garment, having no sleeves.
    • 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.1965, Attila Zohar, Kings Cross Black Magic, Sydney: Horwitz Publications, page 25
  2. (obsolete) Wanting a cover, pretext, or palliation; unreasonable; profitless; useless.
    • a sleeveless errand
    • might send that Greekish / whore-masterly villain with the sleeve back to the / dissembling luxurious drab of 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...

sleeveless meaning in Tamil and Persian

sleeveless in Tamil

கையில்லாத மேலாடை

sleeveless in Persian

of a garment, having no sleeves
رکابی rekâbi

Examples of sleeveless in a sentence

  • My dress had one long sleeve and was sleeveless on the other side.
  • I packed lots of sleeveless clothes, sunblock, and of course a cap.
  • She was well known for wearing short pleated skirts with knitted and crotched sleeveless tops.

All 21 example sentences with sleeveless

Forms of sleeveless

alternative formsleaveless

Origin of sleeveless

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

Words formed from sleeveless

Phrases with sleeveless

Questions about sleeveless

What does sleeveless mean?
Sleeveless means of a garment, having no sleeves.
What is sleeveless in Tamil?
Sleeveless in Tamil is கையில்லாத மேலாடை. See Sleeveless meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is sleeveless?
Sleeveless is an adjective.
How do you pronounce sleeveless?
Sleeveless is pronounced /ˈsliːvlɪs/.

Words near sleeveless in the dictionary

  1. sleevefuls
  2. sleevehand
  3. sleevehands
  4. sleeveholder
  5. sleeveholders
  6. sleeveless
  7. sleeveless errand
  8. sleeveless errands
  9. sleevelessly
  10. sleevelessness
  11. sleevelet

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sleeveless (page history and authors); sleeveless (Tamil Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-sleeveless.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-sleeveless.wav.

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