Word.ws English Dictionary

subjectless

subjectless adjective: lacking a subject (citizen).

Adjective

subjectless (not comparable)

  1. Lacking a subject (citizen).
    • The subjects without King can do nothing; the subjectless King can do something.1840, Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero Worship
  2. Lacking a subject or theme.
    • Using a painstaking technique favored by 15th-century Italians for their most sacred images, Young makes disarmingly beautiful pictures in a loose, almost subjectless language of color and texture and form.1992 May 8, Mitchell Stevens, “Andrew Young”, in Chicago Reader
  3. Lacking a grammatical subject.
    • “We’re here to help you” versus “Were here to help you” makes no sense; a subjectless, past-tense message — as in, “The doctors were here to help you, but now they’re gone” — has scarcely appeared in the history of the universe.2007 July 15, Ann Hodgman, “Children’s Books”, in New York Times

Origin of subjectless

From subject + -less.

Words formed from subjectless

Questions about subjectless

What does subjectless mean?
Subjectless means lacking a subject (citizen).
What part of speech is subjectless?
Subjectless is an adjective.

Words near subjectless in the dictionary

  1. subjectivizations
  2. subjectivize
  3. subjectivized
  4. subjectivizes
  5. subjectivizing
  6. subjectless
  7. subjectlessly
  8. subjectlessness
  9. subjectlike
  10. subjectness
  11. subjector

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: subjectless (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: “subjectless.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/subjectless. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.