Definition of "workless" in English

adjective

1. Devoid of work.

   • In the future, will machines end the need for employment and lead to a workless society?
   • 1935, Christopher Isherwood, Mr Norris Changes Trains (U.S. title: The Last of Mr Norris), Chapter Eight, in The Berlin Stories, New York: New Directions, 1963, p. 87, And morning after morning, all over the immense, damp, dreary town and the packing-case colonies of huts in the suburb allotments, young men were waking up to another workless empty day to be spent as they could best contrive […]

2. Having no work to do; unemployed.

   • A workless household is defined as a household that includes at least one person of working-age (men aged 16-64 years and women aged 16-59 years) where no one in the household aged 16 or over is in employment.

3. (obsolete) Not carried out in practice; not exemplified in fact.