pithless

There are some that detest them as a kind of sacrilege and count it the height of impiety to speak so irreverently of such hidden things, rather to be adored than explicated; to dispute of them with such profane and heathenish niceties; to define them so arrogantly and pollute the majesty of divinity with such pithless and sordid terms and opinions.

In Praise of Folly c. 1466-1536 1958

"I am not," says Bolli, "for it seems to me a feeble, pithless thing."

Epic and Romance Essays on Medieval Literature W. P. Ker

Then the goddess, strange and ominous to see, fashions into the likeness of Aeneas a thin and pithless shade of hollow mist, decks it with Dardanian weapons, and gives it the mimicry of shield and divine helmet plume, gives unsubstantial [640-673] words and senseless utterance, and the mould and motion of his tread: like shapes rumoured to flit when death is past, or dreams that delude the slumbering senses.

The Aeneid of Virgil 70 BC-19 BC Virgil

The Lords amended it to death, and sent it back to the Commons -- the poor and pithless shadow of its former self.

The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. Various

The grass that gets no other light grows slim and pithless, bearing no seed-knot on its slender top.

The Parables of Our Lord William Arnot

For over those the sun has had power since their birth, consuming their marrows and evaporating their blood so that they became pithless things that have to fly indoors for half the day and leave the

The Judge Rebecca West 1937

That was a tame and pithless performance, and if Jasper was in it at all he was evidently resting his better forces for the bigger battle at three o'clock in the impending afternoon.

John Jasper: The Unmatched Negro Philosopher and Preacher William Eldridge 1908

An 'he is but a fusionless carlie, O. [pithless old fellow]

Robert Burns How To Know Him William Allan Neilson 1907

It was her fault that he was such a poor creature; "a pithless creature; I've made you so!" she said.

The Iron Woman Margaret Wade Campbell Deland 1901

When their first pithless tenderness is past, we strip them and aim at hardening them to the temperature of the various seasons, till heat does not incommode nor frost paralyse them.

Works of Lucian of Samosata — Volume 03 of Samosata Lucian 1895