matchless

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From match +‎ -less, modelled after or partly continuing Middle English makeless (“having no peer or equal, matchless”), equivalent to make +‎ -less. Compare Swedish makalös (“incomparable, matchless”), Danish mageløs (“matchless”).

matchless (comparative more matchless, superlative most matchless)

1. Having no match; without equal.
   • 1819, Sir Walter Scott, chapter 8, in Ivanhoe:

     [T]he Prince was to declare the victor in the first day's tourney, who should receive as prize a warhorse of exquisite beauty and matchless strength.

   • 2002, Daniel Okrent, "Books: A Prince of a Pitcher" (Review of: Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy), Time, 30 Sept.:

     It was not his matchless talent that exalted Koufax beyond his greatest contemporaries so much as it was his knowledge that character was not connected to talent.

2. Having no mate.
   • 2010 June 1, Sandra Brennan, “Movies: The Flying Matchmaker (1966)”, in nytimes.com, retrieved 13 September 2010:

     In this comedy, a matchmaker has a matchless daughter. Try as he might, he cannot seem to find anyone for her.

• (without equal): incomparable, nonpareil, peerless, unequaled, unmatched, unparalleled, unsurpassed
• (having no mate): single, unattached

• matchlessly
• matchlessness

From match +‎ -less.

matchless (not comparable)

1. Without the use of matches for ignition.

   a matchless stove