Baseless

How to spell baseless

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce baseless

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does baseless mean?

1. adjectiveHaving no factual support or foundation; unfounded.

Baseless in a sentence

• The company dismissed the rumour as completely baseless.

• Her lawyer argued that the accusations were baseless and should be withdrawn.

Where does baseless come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word joins two very different ancestors. The first part, 'base', came into English in the 1300s through Old French from the Latin basis, which itself was borrowed from Greek and literally meant 'a step', 'a pedestal', or 'the foundation on which something stands'. The everyday sense of a base as the supporting bottom of a structure made it natural to speak of arguments or claims that have no such support. The ending '-less' is a thoroughly native Old English element, leas, meaning 'free from' or 'without', the very same one we see in 'careless' and 'fearless'. Put together since at least the 1600s, 'baseless' literally pictures a thing with no foundation under it, hence 'unfounded'. The spelling trap is simply that the silent 'e' of 'base' is kept before the suffix, giving the double construction 'base' plus 'less' with no letter dropped.

How the word is built

• base (foundation, from Latin basis)
• -less (Old English suffix meaning 'without')