Standard Lemma guide

branchless

adj · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

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1

adj

Meaning 1

Without branches; continuing in a single path or piece; without divergence.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: not-comparable

Examples

  • 1866, Mark Twain, “Equestrian Excursion,” March, 1886, in Letters from the Sandwich Islands Written for the Sacramento Union by Mark Twain,, Stanford University Press, 1938, p. 40, A mile and a half from town, I came to a grove of tall cocoa-nut trees, with clean, branchless stems reaching straight up sixty or seventy feet and topped with a spray of green foliage sheltering clusters of cocoa-nuts—not more picturesque than a forest of colossal ragged parasols, with bunches of magnified grapes under them, would be.
  • 1886, [Henry H. Sweet], Palmistry; or, the Science of Reading the Past, Present and Future, in the Language of the Hands, New York: The Serial Leaflet Publishing Co., p. 21, One long, clear, branchless line indicates great distinction in some one thing; but if dividing into branches, or accompanied by parallel lines of strength equal to its own, there is danger that multiplicity of aims will strangle success.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

adjective

Meaning 2

having no branches

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: branchy

History

Etymology

Etymology tree English branch Proto-Indo-European *lewh1- Proto-Indo-European *lewHs-der. Proto-Germanic *leusaną Proto-Germanic *lausaz Proto-Germanic *-lausaz Proto-West Germanic *-laus Old English -lēas Middle English -les English -less English branchless From branch + -less.