sackless

From sack +‎ -less.

sackless (not comparable)

1. Without a sack.
   • 1830, The Spirit of the English Magazines, page 200:

     The first act consisted of dancing, capering, and tumbling, by about twenty men, enveloped in sacks […] At length, at a given signal by the manager, the whole troop of actors rushed to the spot; they were then sackless, but their features were effectually concealed by masks reaching to the bosom.

From Middle English sakles, sacless (“innocent”), from Old English saclēas (“free from charge, innocent, safe”), from Proto-Germanic *sakalausaz (“free from accusation”), equivalent to sake +‎ -less. Cognate with Danish sagesløs (“blameless”), Swedish saklös (“blamesless”), Icelandic saklaus (“innocent”), Faroese sakleysur (“unoffending, innocent”). More at sake, -less.

• sakeless
• saikless, saickless (Scotland)

sackless (comparative more sackless, superlative most sackless)

1. (provincial, Northern England, poetic or archaic) Blameless, guiltless, innocent.
   • 1838, Walter Scott, The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott: with the author's introductions and notes, page 196:

     […] And where that sackless knight lies slain, […]
     The candles will burn bright.

   • 1900, Eiríkur Magnússon, William Morris, The Story of Grettir the Strong, page 149:

     […] and how Thorir of Garth would not that Grettir should be made sackless.

Though otherwise dated, the word sackless is still used in translations of the Old Norse / Old Icelandic sagas and related contexts.

• Northumberland Words, Oliver Heslop and Harry Haldane, 1894.