This week’s theme
Shirts

This week’s words
unshirted
arrow-collar
button-down
sleeveless
shirttail

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(SLEEV-luhs/lis)

MEANING:

adjective:
1. Unprofitable; futile; unreasonable; irrelevant.
2. Without sleeves.

ETYMOLOGY:

From sleeve, from Old English sliefe + less, from Old English laes (less). Earliest documented use: 950. Also see shirtsleeve.

NOTES:

What does a sleeve have to do with profit? In former times, a lady would give her detachable sleeve (also known as a maunch/manche, from French) to a knight as a symbol of love and he would wear it as he went around in his adventures. A knight without a sleeve was, well, sleeveless. The Encyclopedia Britannica (1880) mentions: “Bayard took a lady’s sleeve and proclaimed it, with a valuable ruby, as a prize to be contended for.”

USAGE:

“I pictured them drearily slogging through the blackened midwinter slush on sleeveless errands.”
Jennifer Howard; What Does Everyone Need This Time of Year?; The Washington Post; Dec 3, 2000.

See more usage examples of sleeveless in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: