leafless

From earlier leaveless, from Middle English leveles, equivalent to leaf +‎ -less.

leafless (not comparable)

1. Of plants or trees, without leaves.

   In winter the leafless trees look cold.

   • 1842, [Katherine] Thomson, chapter XI, in Widows and Widowers. A Romance of Real Life., volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 214:

     One afternoon, when all the party from the house were riding, Adeline sauntered under the leafless, hazel hedges, which separated the pleasure domain from the park.

   • 1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave Two. The First of the Three Spirits.”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 50:

     Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panneling, not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

   • 1915, Edgar Lee Masters, “Hare Drummer”, in Spoon River Anthology, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, page 27:

     For many times with the laughing girls and boys / Played I along the road and over the hills / When the sun was low and the air was cool, / Stopping to club the walnut tree / Standing leafless against a flaming west.

• leaflessness