wimpleless

English

Etymology

From wimple +‎ -less. Compare Middle English wimpelles, winpelleas.

Adjective

wimpleless (not comparable)

1. Without a wimple.
   • [1871, Hiram Corson, Hand-Book of Anglo-Saxon and Early English, New York, N.Y.: Holt & Williams, page 477, column 1:

     wimpel-leas, wimpleless, without wimple.]

   • 1944, Francis D[arwin] S[wift] Darwin, transl., The English Mediaeval Recluse, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, page 36:

     ‘[…] If ye would be wimpleless, have warm capes—and, over them, black veils’.

   • 1948, Roger Sherman Loomis, Rudolph Willard, transl., Medieval English Verse and Prose in Modernized Versions, New York, N.Y.: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., page 51:

     If ye must be wimpleless, be provided with warm capes, and black veils over them.

   • [1958, Norman Lewis, The Comprehensive Word Guide, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., →LCCN, page 570, column 2:

     7. Unhatted; Hatless; Without a Hat, Cap, or Head Covering,adj. From Sec. 2: unbonneted or bonnetless, uncapped or capless, uncoifed, uncowled, unhelmeted or unhelmed, unhooded or hoodless, unkerchiefed, unscarfed, unshawled, unturbaned or turbanless, unveiled or veilless, wimpleless; […]]

   • 1993, The Chaucer Review, volume 27, page 299:

     The overall appearance of the paintings with their very rounded, foreshortened figures and relatively somber palette recalls the naïve portraiture of colonial America, with the Wife of Bath, in particular, riding sidesaddle and wimpleless, clad in demure navy blue with a Peter Pan collar, looking rather more like a pilgrim mother in the Massachusetts Bay Colony than the earthy veteran of the old dance that Chaucer describes.

   • 1999, Sandra Hill, The Bewitched Viking, New York, N.Y.: Love Spell, Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc., →ISBN, page 80:

     Well, mayhap she would feel differently if she was as beauteous as Eadyth, with her luxurious silver-blond hair lying wimpleless about her shoulders under a gossamer-thin headrail of palest lavender, held in place by a gold circlet of twisted flowers.

   • 2006, Richard R. Kennedy, Angel Queen: A Medieval Epic Fantasy, Lulu Publishers, →ISBN, pages 228–229:

     One by one, alerted by sudden silence of the one next to her or nudged by another, the ladies all rushed to the gallery rail and looked down, gasped and were riveted to the apparition that dared enter court wimpleless and without an atour or reticulation upon her head.

   • 2009, Cathy Marie Buchanan, The Day the Falls Stood Still, New York, N.Y.: Voice, Hyperion, →ISBN, page 59:

     There was a sharp rap on my door, and I turned to see a wimpleless Sister Bede bustling into my room.

   • 2010, Mike Johnson, Shadows of War, Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, →ISBN, pages 276 and 353:

     To his surprise Joe felt a surge of affection, an urge to reach out, to embrace the lovely, wimpleless nun. […] Her wimpleless blond hair had grown below her ear lobes.

   • 2010, Anne Marsella, The Baby of Belleville, London: Portobello Books, →ISBN, page 252:

     The woman in the photo was young, wimpleless, with short blonde hair and a solemn yet pretty face.