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Glite Dictionary
🗡️ Without an owner 🖧 No central control
masterless

masterless

1 8.4
Not owned or controlled by anyone, for example a dog living on the street
  • adjective
  • /ˈmæstərləs/
translation icon : sin amo
  • He was blown off by a high wind one stormy night, and I flew on, masterless, without goal or purpose, until I became soaked with rain and was forced down near an encampment of nomads.
  • masterless samurai
  • masterless men

Examples

  • But Ronan not only has an opening credit that says Ronan in feudal Japan the Ronan was a masterless samurai.

  • We tried to pretend we were really the masterless samurai the term "ronin" originally meant; after all, the masterless samurais were the ones on TV who got to grow out all their hair, and that's the first thing we started to do after getting out of high school.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • These are the masterless ones, the ronins, the ones who have broken the lineage.

    Attrition (2018)

  • Masterless samurai.

    47 Ronin (2013)

  • She felt Grendel had tragic potential: the only character in the epic who had no leader in a world where masterless men were outcasts.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • We tried to pretend we were really the masterless samurai the term "ronin" originally meant; after all, the masterless samurais were the ones on TV who got to grow out all their hair, and that's the first thing we started to do after getting out of high school.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • The narrator of these novellas sees this to be the only option left for women who want to remain masterless, and she reassures the reader that "this end is not tragic but rather the happiest that one could have asked for, because she, wanted and desired by many, did not subject herself to anyone" (Boyer xvii).

    Academic text (1994)

  • An omnipotent king might be irresponsible, but Hobbes insisted that even an irresponsible king was better than the "dissolute condition of masterless men, without subjection to laws and a coercive power to tie their hands from rapine and revenge."

    Academic text (2009)

  • The town was filled with masterless warriors, each fighting for their own cause without any leader.

  • After the war, many soldiers became masterless, roaming the land in search of meaning and purpose.

Synonyms

leaderless
vsmasterless
7 5.1

Without a person in charge of a group or team

applies more widely beyond groups, covering lack of control or being held
ownerless
vsmasterless
1 5.6

Something that does not belong to anyone, like a stray cat or a lost bike

includes that lack and also means freedom from outside control
lordless
vsmasterless
9.9

Has no leader or owner

is broader and also means being free from outside control or authority
chainless
vsmasterless
6.5

Free to act without rules or limits

also implies absence of a controlling person or any person in charge

Antonyms

submissive
38 5.1

Willing to obey others and not argue

controlled
3.4

Kept within limits by careful management

Surface Forms

masterless positive

Morphology

masterless = master (transparent) = master + less

The adjective is formed by the productive suffix '-less' meaning 'without', yielding a literal 'without a master' meaning.

Etymology

Masterless comes from master ('a person in charge') and -less ('without'), so it literally means 'without a master'. That's why it describes people or animals with no owner or leader, like a dog or samurai wandering without guidance.