Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Breathing with difficulty; gasping: was breathless from running.
- adj. Marked by the suspension of regular breathing, as from tension or excitement: a breathless audience.
- adj. Causing or capable of causing the suspension of regular breathing; tense or exciting: a breathless flight.
- adj. Not breathing; without breath.
- adj. Dead.
- adj. Having no air or breeze; still: a breathless summer day.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Without breath; dead.
- Out of breath; spent with labor or exertion.
- That takes away the breath.
- Marked by an apparent forgetfulness to breathe; absorbed; eager; excited.
Wiktionary
- adj. Having difficulty breathing; gasping.
- adj. That makes one hold one's breath (with excitement etc.).
- adj. Not breathing; apparently dead.
- adj. Having no wind; still, calm or airless.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Spent with labor or violent action; out of breath.
- adj. Not breathing; holding the breath, on account of fear, expectation, or intense interest; attended with a holding of the breath.
- adj. Dead.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. tending to cause suspension of regular breathing
- adj. appearing dead; not breathing or having no perceptible pulse
- adj. not breathing or able to breathe except with difficulty
Etymologies
- breath + -less (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The air was in breathless calm, not a needle quivered, and the least sounds of the camp were distinct and clear as trumpet calls.”
“BEIJING — China joined the world in breathless coverage of the Chilean mine rescue, but when a gas blast killed 21 Chinese miners and trapped 16 Saturday, the national TV evening news didn't say a word.”
The Huffington Post: China Coal Mine Explosion Kills 20, Traps More Than 30
“BEIJING mdash; China joined the world in breathless coverage of the Chilean mine rescue, but when a gas blast killed 21 Chinese miners and trapped ...”
The Huffington Post: China Coal Mine Explosion Kills 20, Traps More Than 30
“Watch in breathless awe as I get my personal pronouns mixed up --”
Kung Fu Night! Double Feature: The Swordsman II and Chocolate
“Orphan, flushed, still breathless from the kiss, felt a rare kind of happiness take hold of him; he threw his head back and laughed, and the clouds parted.”
“Now will someone please let me cut line to kiss the POTUS ass in breathless gratitude?”
Matthew Yglesias » The Success of the Public Option Campaign
“Who can visit the Grand Canyon and not be in breathless awe?”
“Sit back and wait in breathless anticipation for your congratulatory email!”
“Trekkies everywhere have been waiting for this day in breathless anticipation.”
“You could describe in breathless detail the wine (Century Cellars), the cheese (gorgonzola), and then move on to the good stuff --- swoon over dishy editors, swan over up-coming writers, swing the dishy gossip with the best of 'em.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘breathless’.
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Words that are also movies
Unabashedly stolen from a comment made by courier12.
vertigo, serendipity, casablanca, psycho, jaws, fantasia, stagecoach, network, rocky, giant, platoon, unforgiven and 285 more...
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Genes
Interesting gene names. Some of these may have changed recently (to something less offensive/funny).
http://www.genenames.org/
tinman, agnostic, dreadlocks, Van Gogh, fruitless, lava lamp, ariadne, cheap date, ken and barbie, I'm not dead yet, I'm not dead yet 2, manic fringe and 1192 more... -
-more or -less
Words ending with *more or *less, more or less. Many of theses terms also appear on the list The -less Said, which see.
schemaless, unless, useless, guileless, wireless, regardless, homeless, endless, nevertheless, countless, jobless, doubtless and 434 more...
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Mondayish
Tired. Of all of it.
fag, fatigate, jade, beat, woe-weary, outweary, weariful, taigle, aweary, care-tuned, forwalk, fatigue and 81 more...
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the lascivious
orgiastic, nymph, breathless, writhe, calypso, Medusa, virago, sapphic, catamite, bisou, buss, succubus and 48 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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feeling words
twitterpated, loquacious, ambiguous, pensive, sluggish, anxious, adventurous, curious, abandoned, absent-minded, abrasive, abused and 653 more...
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The -less Said...
hopeless, bootless, groundless, luckless, artless, feckless, hapless, joyless, useless, penniless, childless, peerless and 310 more...
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Tamara's Words
ennui, je ne sais quoi, libertine, dilettante, raconteur, awry, nerdy, ridiculousness, cinnamon, snarky, somnambulist, truthiness and 101 more...
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A list
clench, shudder, clamp, twisting, sharply, thrusting, crashing, pulsing, curling, thrumming, rippling, wrench and 94 more...
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christy927's list
...all my favorite words...
chrysalis, mahogany, indigo, elysian, rubenesque, cataclysmic, scythe, archaic, gaelic, trollop, sycamore, canopy and 279 more...
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How I feel about you:
The sound of my name spoken by your lips... I need a word for that.
love, lust, secret, honey, milky, touch, flesh, skin, neptune, kiss, wet, taste and 82 more...
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I can make you weak/ and if you dive ...
sexy/dirty
grind, moan, tease, cunt, fuck, lick, bite, come, breathless, suck, delicious, honey and 2 more...
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Teasers
tease, finger, lips, caress, sweat, tongue, tickle, moan, gasp, skin, grind, wiggle and 10 more...
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aebl's Words
humblebee, jasmine, parvenu, lilt, mercurial, syzygy, sidereal, spume, spindrift, zephyr, glister, opalesce and 64 more...
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ok_girl's Words
endemic, jubilee, panache, propensity, quell, phantasmagoric, respite, writhe, ok, pronounce, gesticulate, reconcile and 17 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for breathless.
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