What does "leafless" mean?

Of plants or trees, without leaves.

What is a synonym for "leafless"?

Common synonyms include: aphyllous, defoliated, scapose.

Leafless

adj

adj ·2 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective

1
Of plants or trees, without leaves. not-comparable
"In winter the leafless trees look cold."

Adjective

1
having no leaves wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

aphyllous defoliated scapose

Antonyms

All antonyms

leafy

Example

More examples

"Through the clear wintry sunshine the bells this morning rang from the gray church tower amid the leafless elms, and up the walk the villagers trooped in their best dresses and their best faces — the latter a little reddened by the sharp wind: mere redness in the middle aged; in the maids, wonderful bloom to the eyes of their lovers — and took their places decently in the ancient pews."

Etymology

From earlier leaveless, from Middle English leveles, equivalent to leaf + -less.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.