Wanless

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Not decreasing, fading, or growing smaller over time
2. Describing something that does not wane, dwindle, or lose its strength
3. Remaining full, steady, and undiminished without any loss or decline

Etymology: "Wanless" is a surname before it is anything else, and its meaning comes from a medieval nickname. It descends from Middle English "wanles", meaning hopeless or luckless, so the first people to carry it were probably tagged with a reputation for misfortune rather than a trade or a place. Nicknames of this kind were a common way of distinguishing one man from another in villages where many people shared the same first name. The adjective sense, meaning lacking hope or luck, is the older meaning that the surname preserves. In that sense it sits close to the modern "wan" in its sense of pale and drained, though the two are not the same word. The surname's origin shows how a description of a person's condition could harden into a family name that outlasted the description itself.