Countless

How to spell countless

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce countless

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does countless mean?

1. adjectiveToo many to be counted; very numerous.

Countless in a sentence

• She spent countless hours preparing the annual report.

• The beach was covered with countless tiny shells.

Where does countless come from?

Language of origin: French

This word is a transparent English compound built from the verb count and the suffix -less. Count itself came into Middle English in the 1300s from Old French conter, meaning 'to add up' or 'to tell over', which descended from the Latin computare, 'to calculate or reckon together', formed from com- 'together' and putare 'to reckon'. The suffix -less is native English, from Old English -leas, meaning 'free from' or 'without', and it is the same element that ends words like hopeless and harmless. Put together, countless literally means 'unable to be counted', a sense first recorded in English in the late 1500s. Because -less is such an ordinary native ending, the chief spelling point is simply remembering the doubled s where count and -less meet.

How the word is built

• count (to tally or number)
• -less (without, lacking)