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living beings or vegetation; dead, or apparently dead; spiritless; powerless; dull; as, a lifeless carcass; lifeless matter; a lifeless desert; a lifeless wine; a lifeless story. -- Life"less*ly, adv. -- Life"less*ness, n.

The supposed origination of living organisms from lifeless matter; such genesis as does not involve the action of living parents; spontaneous generation; -- called also abiogeny, and opposed to biogenesis. I shall call the . . . doctrine that living matter may be produced by not living matter, the hypothesis of abiogen…

As if dead; lifeless; spiritless; dejected; depressed. Shak.

Destitute of blood, or apparently so; as, bloodless cheeks; lifeless; dead. The bloodless carcass of my Hector sold. Dryden.

g some iron, and therefore turning red when burned. -- Clay cold, cold as clay or earth; lifeless; inanimate. -- Clay ironstone, an ore of iron consisting of the oxide or carbonate of iron mixed with clay or sand. -- Clay marl, a whitish, smooth, chalky clay. -- Clay mill, a mill for mixing and tempering clay; a pu…

Somewhat dead, dull, or lifeless; deathlike. The lips put on a deadish paleness. A. Stafford.

The lifeless food matter in the cytoplasm of an ovum or a cell, as distinguished from the active or true protoplasm; yolk substance; yolk.

To pass from an animate to a lifeless state; to cease to live; to suffer a total and irreparable loss of action of the vital functions; to become dead; to expire; to perish; -- said of animals and vegetables; often with of, by, with, from, and rarely for, before the cause or occasion of death; as, to die of disease or…

To render lifeless; to subdue; to disquiet. [Obs.] Do not dismay yourself for this. Spenser.

Heavy; gross; cloggy; insensible; spiritless; lifeless; inert. "The dull earth." Shak. As turning the logs will make a dull fire burn, so changes of study a dull brain. Longfellow.

Lifeless matter deposited in the form of minute granules within the protoplasm of living cells.

Lifeless; dead. [R.] "Carcasses exanimate." Spenser.

Lifeless; dead. [Obs.] Johnson.

ferments. See Ferment, n. Formed material (Biol.), a term employed by Beale to denote the lifeless matter of a cell, that which is physiologically dead, in distinction from the truly germinal or living matter.

Slow; sluggish; inactive; or lifeless, dull, inanimate, stupid; as, a heavy gait, looks, manners, style, and the like; a heavy writer or book. Whilst the heavy plowman snores. Shak. Of a heavy, dull, degenerate mind. Dryden. Neither [is] his ear heavy, that it can not hear. Is. lix. 1.

Not animate; destitute of life or spirit; lifeless; dead; inactive; dull; as, stones and earth are inanimate substances. Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves. Byron.

Want of animation; lifeless; dullness.

Indisposed to move or act; very slow to act; sluggish; dull; inactive; indolent; lifeless. The inert and desponding party of the court. Macaulay. It present becomes extravagant, then imbecile, and at length utterly inert. I. Taylor.

Not susceptible of excitement; dull; lifeless; torpid.

Cold as a metallic key; lifeless. [Formerly, a proverbial expression.] Shak. Milton.