| English Dictionary |
EFFORTLESS
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| IPA (US): |  |
Dictionary entry overview: What does effortless mean?
• EFFORTLESS (adjective)
The adjective EFFORTLESS has 2 senses:
1. requiring or apparently requiring no effort
2. not showing effort or strain
Familiarity information: EFFORTLESS used as an adjective is rare.
Dictionary entry details
Sense 1
Meaning:
Requiring or apparently requiring no effort
Context example:
the swallows glided in an effortless way through the busy air
Similar:
facile (performing adroitly and without effort)
unforced; unstrained (not resulting from undue effort; not forced)
Also:
easy (posing no difficulty; requiring little effort)
Antonym:
effortful (requiring great physical effort)
Derivation:
effortlessness (the quality of requiring little effort)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Not showing effort or strain
Synonyms:
casual; effortless
Context example:
careless grace
Similar:
easy (posing no difficulty; requiring little effort)
Derivation:
effortlessness (the quality of requiring little effort)
Context examples
“It may also help explain why it has been so hard for scientists to train monkeys to perform auditory tasks that humans find relatively effortless.”
(Our brains appear uniquely tuned for musical pitch, National Institutes of Health)
Yet, the birds made what seems almost impossible for a human look effortless.
(Researchers study birds to improve how robots land, National Science Foundation)
His was the gait of the wolf, smooth, tireless and effortless, and at the end of fifty miles he would come in jauntily ahead of the horse.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
Effortless regurgitation of food, milk, and saliva that commonly occurs in infants, usually right after feeding or burping.
(Infantile Gastroesophageal Reflux, NCI Thesaurus)
Self-abandoned, relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, and felt the torrent come: to rise I had no will, to flee I had no strength.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Its nose was to the trail, and it trotted with a peculiar, sliding, effortless gait.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
Nevertheless, with the exception of the ones that limped, the movements of the animals were effortless and tireless.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
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