Shirtless

How to spell shirtless

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce shirtless

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does shirtless mean?

1. adjectiveNot wearing a shirt; with the upper body bare.

Shirtless in a sentence

• The builders worked shirtless in the August heat.

• He answered the door shirtless and slightly embarrassed.

Where does shirtless come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a straightforwardly native English formation. The base word 'shirt' descends from the Old English 'scyrte', a Germanic word related to something short or cut, and it shares an ancient root with both 'short' and 'skirt' (the latter arriving later through Old Norse 'skyrta'). The suffix '-less' comes from the Old English 'leas', meaning 'free from' or 'without', the same element seen in countless words like 'hopeless' and 'careless'. Joined together, the compound simply means 'without a shirt', and it has been used in English for centuries with no change in meaning. The spelling is regular: the only thing to watch is keeping the single 's' of '-less' doubled, since the suffix itself ends in '-ss'.

How the word is built

• shirt (garment for the upper body)
• -less (without)