LISTLESSNESS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does listlessness mean? 

• LISTLESSNESS (noun)
  The noun LISTLESSNESS has 2 senses:

1. a feeling of lack of interest or energy

2. inactivity resulting from lethargy and lack of vigor or energy

  Familiarity information: LISTLESSNESS used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LISTLESSNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A feeling of lack of interest or energy

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

languor; lassitude; listlessness

Hypernyms ("listlessness" is a kind of...):

apathy (an absence of emotion or enthusiasm)

Derivation:

listless (lacking zest or vivacity)

listless (marked by low spirits; showing no enthusiasm)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Inactivity resulting from lethargy and lack of vigor or energy

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

listlessness; torpidity; torpidness; torpor

Hypernyms ("listlessness" is a kind of...):

passiveness; passivity (the trait of remaining inactive; a lack of initiative)

Derivation:

listless (lacking zest or vivacity)

 Context examples 

Listlessness to everything, but brooding sorrow, was the night that fell on my undisciplined heart.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

This sensation of listlessness, weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself, this feeling of every thing's being dull and insipid about the house!

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Catherine said no more, and, with an endeavour to do right, applied to her work; but, after a few minutes, sunk again, without knowing it herself, into languor and listlessness, moving herself in her chair, from the irritation of weariness, much oftener than she moved her needle.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Blanche Ingram, after having repelled, by supercilious taciturnity, some efforts of Mrs. Dent and Mrs. Eshton to draw her into conversation, had first murmured over some sentimental tunes and airs on the piano, and then, having fetched a novel from the library, had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa, and prepared to beguile, by the spell of fiction, the tedious hours of absence.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)