voiceless

From voice +‎ -less.

• IPA^(key): /ˈvɔɪsləs/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: voice‧less

voiceless (not comparable)

1. Lacking a voice, without vocal sound.

   Synonyms: inaudible, silent, unvoiced

   Antonyms: audible, vocal, voiced

   • 1890, Albert Kimsey Owen, Integral Co-operation at Work ... - Page 105:

     How people, with any pretence to decency or cleanliness, can, for a day, sit voiceless and patient and see these brutes destroy and befilth everything, public and private, is difficult to believe.

   • 1994, Loreena McKennitt, The Mystic's Dream:

     A voiceless song in an ageless light / Sings at the coming dawn / Birds in flight are calling there / Where the heart moves the stones / It's there that my heart is calling / All for the love of you.

2. (figurative) Without a vote; having no input into a decision.
   • 2011, Jan Johnson, Living a Purpose-Full Life:

     I've come to see she is a voiceless person in her world, and so I try to remember to stop and give her my full-faced attention when I see her.

   • 2010, Bo Burnham, “Oh Bo”, in Words Words Words:

     I feel like hip-hop / Used to be a voice for the voiceless, you know? / And now it's become, at least in the mainstream, a symbol of / misogyny, gay panic, fiscal irresponsibility, you know? / So I figure / if you can't beat 'em / join 'em

3. (phonetics, of a consonant or vowel) Spoken without vibration of the vocal cords; unvoiced, surd, breathed. Examples: [t], [s], [f], [m̥], [u̥].

   Synonym: unvoiced

   Antonym: voiced

• speechless